Northern Arizona pine country - Part 4

Rollin' rollin' rollin', keep them wheels a rollin'!

At this same ranger station (even tho it was actually closed) the patio behind had ppl on it. It looked as tho they were in a circle and taking pictures. I was thinking it may be a wedding, but really not sure. I did not want to be any sort of annoyance for them so I made sure when I started the bike and drove off, I kept the noise down.

I dart straight across the station and head down Forest Lakes Road. There are several lookout points there. All the stops are on my left. It was hard to decide to stop before or after the lake. Then I look up and notice the clouds really started rolling in.

Ahh here I am. Wood Canyon Lake! Or at least the start of the camping/recreation area.

This was obviously a slow area, and even if it wasn't I was going to ride slow and enjoy the forest beauty. The road was also a bit rough since it was a mountain road and not part of the highway. It has plenty of twisties a couple of switchbacks.

Just as I make my first stop I look up. Oh man, the rain clouds are really building up now. It would be no big deal to be in the rain up there. However, not a good idea to be riding down the rim while its raining or possibly even very wet. The highway up to the rim is a very steep grade.

What am I to do? Carry on and do what I do best, keep riding. So on this stop I manage to get some more views off the rim. Keep in mind there are no fences or anything from keeping rocks, trees or ppl off the cliff. From this view there were no clouds. You can also see the highway from which I came.

Here you can see basically how steep it is and how the cliffs are.

This is steeper than it looks, but here I am looking straight down from one of the overhanging rocks.

More views from where I'm standing of the rock formations that make up the rim.

Parents, keep your children away. I'm just warning you. I just saw a greasy biker up there. Oh wait! That's me! I wanted to get a couple good landscape shots with me in.

I hadn't taken many photos with my scoot in it, so I figured it was time to take some more.

So I put the camera away once again. I am really close to the lake at this point. I arrive and end up circling th parking lot just so I can find a good spot to park. Its beautiful and there are lots of ppl around. Most of them stare at me wondering what the hell I'm doing up there. Others stare at me probably wondering why a greasy biker has a camera. I swear I'm not an undercover cop.

I remember many times when I was younger coming up here to go finishing. We would always get here before dawn and cook breakfast with out camping stove and wait for the store to open so we could rent a trolling boat. I've caught many fish on this lake.

Boy was I really itching to fish at this point. Hard to do without my gear. I walked to a quiet cove area on the lake and wanted to take some photos. On my way to the area, I see a squirrel in the rocks. I stop to try and take so photos of it, but it quickly looked and me and ran off. I'm trying to be a little more artistic in some of these, playing around with the camera settings including focus.

This next shop is the side of the store. Although it looks like it may be old I don't believe it is.

By this time I'm back at the bike, packed up and really to head on out. I was going to try to go to the camping area which goes further towards the back of the lake. However, they now charge to even pass the ranger gate so I turned back around and headed back to Forest Lake Road. I stopped at the first lookout area on the way back to take some more photographs of the views off the rim. Of course the first one is of my bike from where I was heading.