Return to Bench Creek

Well first, apologizes for no pictures. I arrived back at the bench creek trailhead after being turned away by weather last time, but with a new partner for the ride. After the epic yesterday, howie decided to give his back a rest, it was not bothering him but he did not want to push it. Pooh and I did the few mile paved road section to the dirt trailhead without issue. We headed up along Bench Creek, staring out as a nice buff single track. As the ride description told us, we ran into a number of relatively short technical ups in between the the buff sections on our way up the canyon. Pooh tried and made more of them than myself but still had to walk a bit. It was a fairly constant grade up, more or less middle ring near the upper end of the cassette. After about 5 miles and 1500 feet or so of climbing we hit the reroute the forest service put in a few years ago to keep the trail off of private ground. It was quite steep, I walked the majority of it but Pooh valiantly rode a good portion. at the top we crossed over a dirt road then onto the intersection with Camp Hollow trail. Down we went through a few meadows then along the creek, lots of fun. We hit a short up, we both were struggling a bit with it when I said something and he was glad I did because he thought it was just him. Still cant figure it out, it didnt seem too steep. After that we had a bit more down and we were at the intersection with the Little south fork that we had come down a couple times previously, but no sheep dogs. I forgot that David's mud puddle was coming up and Pooh saw it too late, he got slowed down enough to keep from going over the bars like David, but sunk his wheels and one foot in deep to the point he had a heck of a time pulling them out. The rest of the trip down was pretty uneventful, a few of the rocky sections caught him off guard but all in all a great ride. We hit Agony hill and Pooh cleaned it, I slid out on a rock about 20 yards from the top of the steep section, but continued to ride it up. A rocky downhill and some jeep trail and we were back at the truck. It took us about 3 hours to do the 17.5 miles and 2600 feet of climbing. It felt a little wimpy but 10.5 hours over 2 days riding isnt too bad.
Back at camp, howie had done laundry and we headed first to the hardware store then to the grocery store as Pooh went fishing. Joanne happened to call howie as we were checking out at the hardware store, he mentioned where he was and she got scared until he told her he was there with me. BBQ chicken and burgers were on the menu for the next couple nites. Pooh made it back claiming to have caught a few more but again with no proof what so ever. Currently we are watching the last of the Family Guy first season DVD's I brought along. We still havent figured out what we are gonna ride tomorrow but will tomorrow morning.