Pine Flats

Flat places. Many of us live in flat places with their perfectly surveyed checkerboard of straight roads, all leading to properly homogenized and carefully structured sameness. But our souls live in the mountains. We feel ourselves coming alive when we point our rigs up a twisting, winding snake of a road that leads up into a wildly disorganized and jumbled mountain range. Add a few gurgling mountain streams and the whistling song of the wind in the tops of tall pines, and we are happy boys and girls again. Pine Flats, so named for the level Ponderosa studded valley about 8 miles up the trail, is not an overly exciting road. There are no challenging obstacles. You won't shift in and out of low range. There are a lot of things this trail isn't. But Pine Flats possesses unmistakably fine attributes. The views are long across the valleys below. Looking upward, there's always a ridgeline teasing you to climb higher yet. Splashing through the water crossings is somehow childishly satisfying. Catching a glimpse of a doe and fawn amongst the trailside brush makes you smile. Listening to the relaxing harmony of a mountain stream sluicing over multihued granite boulders as you picnic or camp soothes the frayed nerves of we flat land dwellers. Take an easy ride up Pine Flats into the Bradshaw Mountains. There's lots of adventure beyond the end of the trail if that's what you're after. But your soul will appreciate what Pine Flats isn't.