Saturday, May 03, 2008

Today's Extraordinary Bike Ride

I set out to find some geocaches via bicycle today and actually found all 9 that I looked for to get my total finds to 600 even. Four of the caches were part of a series called "Historic Highline Canal Series". There are 4 of them and at each one is some information about the highline canal.

Construction on the canal was started way back in 1879 and it is still used to some extent today for irrigation. It's mostly used to fill ponds and small lakes along its 70 mile length. There is a great hiking and biking trail along much of its length and it is along this path that I found the 4 caches today. I have hidden several caches of my own along the trail as well.

After finding the fourth and final cache in the series, I began contemplating what the area might have looked like when the canal was new or even "only" 50 years old. I was riding close to the C470 expressway along the paved trail when all of a sudden, the concrete was gone and the pathway was covered by weeds. C470 and County Line road disappeared along with all the traffic noise. The only thing that was the same was the sound of the frogs croaking in the nearby pond. The cottonwood trees that line the canal were very small. Water flowed through the canal just like it was today. I stopped and wondered what had just happened but then I heard someone say "on your left" and I was back to 2008.

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