Juniper Dunes with Matt

I spent the afternoon with a old friend hiking in the Juniper Dunes wilderness. Both Matt and myself had unwittingly decided that this would be a place to explore so when I met up with him and the topic of where we should go came up it didn't take much time to decide. 

The Juniper Dunes area is ringed by privately owned farmland and access is very limited. However I had read online prior to meeting up with Matt that there was an easement agreement that the landowners had agreed to so that the public could access this area. Heading out we followed the directions and came to the area. Parking the car in the area designated for such we decided to hike in. After we had walked in about 200 meters up to the top of the first rise we were overtaken by a gentleman who was taking his brand new ATV for a spin. He offered to give us a ride in and being as we could increase our time in the area this way we accepted.

The ride in brought back memories for both Matt and I, who had spent a year on the island of Pohnpei many years ago. Riding in the back of the ATV with our legs dangling off the back and holding on to the side made for some fun times. Our travel benefactor mentioned an area that few other ATV's traveled so that we would have a more peaceful stay and agreed to give us a ride out to it. As we had turned off the main path the trail got more rugged and this gave us the need to hold on for dear life. The worst/best/you gotta be crazy for doing this, instance came when the ATV was gunned down a 40 degree back to pick up speed and then proceeded to climb up the other side which was even steeper. 

One must remember that we were sitting in the back of an open bed with the tailgate down and being as this was only a ATV our legs from the knees down were sticking straight out of the back. Well when that puppy hit the uphill slope and the driver gunned the engine to get it to the top a couple things happened all at once. The first bump gave both Matt and I some air... our butts were probably a good two or three inches off the bed of the ATV. Having gunned the ATV it picked up speed and decided to go up the hill. Well this would all have been good except for the fact that since our butts were not in contact with the vehicle was in danger of getting left behind. For a fraction of a second both Matt and I went into survival mode scrambling to grab on to each other and also anything else solid we could get a grip on to keep each other attached to the now speeding ATV as it finished its climb out of the gully.

After dropping us off at a spot not far from this spot we bid our new friends goodbye and proceeded to hike about enjoying being both alive and still in one piece. I must say that this is a area that I plan on going back to real soon as I only had about three hours in the area and could see that to fully appreciate the possibilities I would have to spend much more time here.