Sunday October 9 we went on a trip up the Buster Road trail, past New Eldorado creek, up to the ridge above it, and went ridge running south back to Osborn Creek. The ridge running was new ground for us.

The blue dots are the Buster trail, which leads north to the start of the Ridge running we did -- in red dots.

This USGS map was produced by a "gtopo", a Linux software program by Tom Trebisky. The map itself was further edited with "gimp" (like Photoshop for Linux) which sized it, cropped it, added text and dots.

All pictures are Copyright © 2011, Keith Andrews and used with permission.

My dog leading three of the riders, Arnie Ashenfelter in the rear, Doctor Derek Leedy in the middle, and myself in front.

Keith is not in this picture: he is the photographer.

My german shepherd Sydney comes up to investigate Keith, the picture taker.

Endless miles of Willow tunnels like these are a highlight of the Buster trail.

Keith Andrews, the photographer.

Frozen scapes. Cold up here in the mountains, even in early October.

Motion frozen in time. Seven months before it moves again!

That's the ridge we want to go to! It overlooks the New Eldorado Creek, the Willow Tunnels and ends up back in Osborn creek.

Keith's trusty 2-wheel drive Honda 300.

Ramon crosses a little frozen rill.

Up on the ridge, Arnie Ashenfelter investigates an interesting rock formation.

Sometimes the going is rough! We skirted this rockpile.

Up on top, one of us is ridge running. This is glorious riding indeed!

Looking down from the ridge. The plainly visible river is Osborn Creek. Notice at the right of the picture it forks. That is Cuss Creek (see map above). This picture is taken just as we were starting the descent from the ridge to Osborn Creek.

Arnie and Keith.

Bear sign. We saw a lot of these. This was sticky, warm and steamy. But, we did not espy the bear.

We descended from the ridge and came down on Osborn Creek. Here is Dr. Leedy taking a well deserved rest.

This is at a lower elevation. The river is flowing, but the ponds and sloughs are already covered with a thin layer of ice.