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Apple adventure in the San Bernardino Mtns 10/06/18

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Apple Days have been a mainstay event in Julian for decades now, but i remember when I went up there in 1970.  It was a quiet event that featured local varieties of apples at the few fruit stands that were up  there.  Very quaint and low key.  Of course now fall time is crazy with tourists and weekenders all trying to get a taste  of this event....no parking left and big crowds of people all over  the main  drag.  Just lately I have been looking for that quaint, low key,  old timey experience again....

On my way up to Heart Bar about three weeks ago, I noticed a little sign along the highway that read: U pick apples.  It was down a road that I never even knew was there.  My friend that I was meeting up with also had spotted the sign and mentioned it to me.  "we should go find that place" she said....but we rode too late to swing by and investigate on that day.  Fast forward to yesterday.  KJ and I were ready to go pick us some heirloom varieties of apples from the 100 year old orchard at Stetson Creek ranch.  We meandered across the valley on familiar trails, cut back east on the highway, then dropped in on the dirt forest road.  Two and a half miles later (with some side trail investigations thrown in) we found ourselves at the orchard, which was filled with Rome Beauties, Macintosh and Winesap apples...all the ones that I used t o see in the markets when I was a kid, but have since been replaced with all the new"improved" varieties such as Honeycrisp, Gala, etc.....

A lady named Patty owns the place along with her husband, but she seems to be the one who handles the groups of excited apple pluckers who brave the dirt road in their Prius passenger cars  for a few bags of old time apples out of an organic orchard that is frequented by the local bears at night.  You have to be careful not to step in any of the big piles of bear poop that that are scattered all over the orchard while you are scouting about for the best picks.  So Karen and I each bought a bag, grabbed a stick and sauntered off to fill our bags up.  Karen went for the larger apples, while my approach was to get a lot  of little ones that created less air gaps between them in the bag.  After foraging around a while and filing our bags, we found a clear patch of grass and plopped down  to take in the view.  There were probably a twenty other people there, maybe four or five vehicles.  We could have just taken a nap in the warm sunshine, but after some time, we were on our bikes again to finish our loop.  We really didn't have an itinerary, so we just sort of moseyed along, played in a creek, and investigated whatever path struck our fancy.  It was a laid back day, and our loop ended up being less than 50 miles.  But the day wasn't about putting on miles, or conquering technical stuff...it was just about relaxing and being spontaneous.

Photos to follow as soon as Photobucket quits taking a crap and comes back o n line.<_<

 

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Nice. Great weather up there now. 

We put in close to 100 miles of the harder stuff 

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Okay, Photobunkit is back up....please note that all pics were taken with a cell phone, so the action shots in the creek didn't come out sharp like they should have.  The scenic shots are what the Samsung does best.

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That looks like a fun ride.  Is the route you took accessible 2-up?  Mama likes Julian and if I could put her on back of the 650 that looks like a perfect day!

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4 minutes ago, simicrintz said:

That looks like a fun ride.  Is the route you took accessible 2-up?  Mama likes Julian and if I could put her on back of the 650 that looks like a perfect day!

All the routes we took were pretty easy, all the main routes anyway.  Stetson Creek Ranch should remain open a couple more weeks depending on what the weather does to the apples.

http://www.stetsoncreekranch.com/

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Just a heads up. This will be the last weekend of the season that the orchard will be open, in case anybody was thinking about making the trip.

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