Columns: Battling Rabies and Snow

"Stockpile your food and head for the mountains -- that's the only safe place left."

I first heard these words as a young teenager, vulnerable to anyone's crackpot ideas. Somehow I ignored these distant, family friends and continued living in South Florida. Since then, I've discovered some of the magic mountains have to offer. But I've also discovered another side.

Mountains are great places for derelicts, outcasts and invalids to hang out. I'd always been completely oblivious, until one late-fall afternoon last year in the foothills of Southern California. I was heading home after a few snow-filled hours on my cyclocross bike. After a long, icy descent, I approached a gate with a large, mangy, brown dog lying next to it. As I stopped and unclipped my cold, numb foot, the dog jumped up and began barking hysterically. I took a few steps back and crouched down with my hands stretched out (the universal dog-calming posture). After a couple minutes of crouching and calming on my side and barking and growling on his, a small, suspicious-looking boy popped out from behind a rock a few feet from the dog.

"Aw, don't worry about this old dog -- he wouldn't bite nobody," the child said, restraining the canine.

As I nodded and stepped forward, the dog broke free and snapped at me. Then I heard laughing -- not just from the kid, but also from his parents down the street. The child grabbed the dog again, so I decided all I'd have to do is mount up 'cross-style and sprint away. So off I went. Somewhere between the thought of sprinting and the action, the dog took a chunk out of my ankle. The entire group found this hilarious.

"Don't worry, he's alright," the couple said, cracking up, as the child finally leashed the vicious animal. I rode away wincing in pain, but happy to finally be moving again.

I didn't think much of this encounter until I started on my way back home. My ankle began to stiffen up; I was quickly losing daylight and all I could think of were the evil canyon folk's laughter. For the sake of all other trail users, I called our friends at Animal Control and filed a report. They looked at the damage and quarantined the dog for a while. This started a long line of stories from other riders, the sheriff's department, firemen, and basically anyone who'd spent much time in the canyons. These were reliable sources with tales of Satanism, meth labs, sprawling pot fields and killings, all in my mountains!

Now whenever I ride through these dark canyons, I can't help but get a little nervous. I'm the guy who called the authorities, the bastard who had the dog taken away. What about my old friends -- aren't the mountains supposed to be safe? I fear we may have waited too long. The undesirables beat us to it, but it's still not too late to get out there and take 'em back! We all need to band together -- after stockpiling our food, of course -- and head to the hills to reclaim our turf!