There was a trail just up the mouth of the canyon behind our school
that was the preferred refuge for the hillbilly caste as the avoided
the rigors of academia. The trail has since been closed but at the
time the only barrier to entry was the deeply rutted and nearly
impassable road that all but required a four-wheel drive vehicle. It
was a kind of badge of honor to have ridden there in your truck and
spent time that should have been spent in the classroom free and in
the wild. One day when some friends and I were out on our
recognizance tooling around in the Fairmont we decided to give the
Forebay trail a try and see if my car could make the trip. It was
painfully slow going and it felt like we were stuck a couple of times
but we made it to the top where we found a couple of proud truck
owners that we had to take down a peg of two because if a lowly
two-wheel-drive car could make it then it was not too hard after all.
We got back in and rode down making it in one piece which was better
than the car. There was a few of the bits that were supposed stuck to
the bottom of the car were a lot less stuck there than they were when we
had left.
