Okay Winter, it's time for you to go!

So Metro threw out the bait late last week for a Sunday mountain ride.  I was ready to bite but the weather looked to suck with the forcast calling for rain.  As Sunday approached, the weather dudes started talking about snow.  A check of  the forcast indicated a pretty much sure thing for some snow out at Sherando.  Hmmmm.  One last snow ride to send out winter in style.  Hell yeah, let's do it!
  No one else was free or quite crazy enough to join in, so we loaded up the Millineum Falcon (aka the work van) and headed out to Sherando.  When we got out we were only a little surprised to find it was freaking cold!

  I have been trying for years to find a really good route at Sherando and pitched my idea to Metro.  "Only one way to find out, dude."  Trail Map  We started out climbing White Rock Gap Trail.  White rock is a great trail with a nice managable grade as it climbs past the upper lake and along the creek.

We turned onto Slacks Trail which, except for a few washed out areas, is one of those rare mountain trails that rides great either direction.  The grade turns up a little near the top and there are a couple of nice rock gardens.

  We reached Torry Ridge Trail and decided to ride it in the northerly direction.  I've heard a lot of belly-aching and horror stories about Torry Ridge, but we agreed it rode great in the northerly direction.  It is almost continuously rocky and very technical with several nice size gardens.  The wet snow only added to the challenge, but we rode most of it on the rigid SSs.  The scenery was great too, although the cloud cover robbed the usual continuous views.

  We descended the Mills Creek connector over to Mills Creek Trail.  The connector trail was also very rocky, techy, and fun.  Once on Mills Creek, we rolled down to Coal Rd. and began the long roll out to the Stony Run Jeep Road.  We took a break at the base of the climb, but before I could even dig out some food, we had gone from over-heated from the final climb on Coal Rd. to shivering cold.  We quickly started up the long climb.    Monster Metro and I were turning the same gear but he had more to give and stronger legs resulting in a faster cadence.  I was able to keep him in sight for a while, but eventually all I had were tracks.

 The jeep road is very rocky and rugged and like the energizer bunny it keeps going, and going, and going.....  It was the first time crankin' the single speed up this beastly climb, but I stuck with it until levelling out on Big Levels.  This section is usually pretty fast as you skirt the St. Mary's Wilderness, but not today.  There were big mud and sand pits as well as huge, deep puddles.   The going was slow and tough, and I started to wonder about running out of daylight.  I pressed on up the final climb over Flint Mtn. and finally caught up to Metro hanging out at the magic bus, waiting for me.

Old photo.

We had planned to descend Torry Ridge to Slacks, to White Rock Gap back to the truck.  Having less than an hour of daylight, we decided to coast down the Blue Ridge Parkway to White Rock Gap to save time. 

  With numb extremities, we hit the final 2.5 miles of single-track down to the truck.  With thoughts of warming up in the truck and peeling off in search of some hot food, I managed to flat coming up out of a creek crossing.  Since my bike was frozen and covered with ice (and so was I) I decided to just run/walk the last mile, as Metro went ahead to warm up the truck.
  What an adventure!  I am officially done with winter.

Epic Weekend. Day 2

Day 2.

  The rain had quit overnight, and we awoke to a clear and crisp morning.

  We discussed riding options over breakfast and coffee.

  There were several options for riding right where we were, but I was jonesin' to hit North Mountain Trail (aka Dragon's Back).  Dragon's Back is one of the most rugged, difficult trails around.  Extremely rocky and technical ridgeline riding with constant views.  Joel was down with that, so we packed up and headed south.    We parked at Stone Coal Gap, which is where North Mountain trail intersects with Broad Run forest road.  Our plan was to ride Broad Run forest road to Wildife Road then on to Grouse Trail.  Climb Grouse to North Mountain, then ride the "Dragon's Back" all the way back to the truck.    This would cover much of the Dragon's Tale Race Course.

  We got our stuff together and set out for some adventure.  The ride started with a long, gradual descent on Broad Run.  There were several crossings of the run but the water was at a good moderate level.  I have memories of racing the Dragon's Back race a few years ago when some of these creek crossings were 2-3 feet deep.  The scenery was really nice along Broad Run and continued when we turned left onto the gated and closed Wildlife Road.  We meandered back and forth, up and down on Wildlife Road until we got to Grouse Trail.

Grouse is a 1.5 mile steep climb up to the ridgeline and North Mountain Trail.
 Looks easy enough on the map.

We worked our way up the climb, riding much more of it than we thought we could. 



  Once upon the back of the Dragon, we took a short break, before rolling the narrow,rocky spine.

I wish I would have taken more pictures on the ridge.  Here are some more that I ripped off. 
The views are constant with the leaves not having popped out yet.
Looking east across the Catawba Valley at Tinker Mountain.  You can see "Tinkers'Cliffs"  The Appalachian Trail goes across it.  I camped on the cliffs backpacking a couple years back.  Also Carvin's Cove is on the other side.

Roanoke Cement Plant.

We stopped to clear a tree.

  We reached the end of the ridge and enjoyed the final descent down to Stone Coal Gap and the truck.  Another awesome ride.  Perhaps the best in a while.  I realized that both rides of the weekend both started and ended with downhill.  We had no mechanical problems (not even a flat), and no crashes.  Hard to beat.  We loaded up and headed for home.

Epic Weekend. Day 1

Finally getting around to another blog entry.  Kind of got bored with it.

 Spring is springing, and with the weather guys calling for sunny and 80 on Friday, there was no way I was going to miss out.  I was really itchin' to get out to the mountains for some good riding and the first camp out of the year.  After hitting everyone up, Joel G., my can-do man, was up for some fun.  Not particularly being morning go-getters, we were heading west out of town only slightly later than we wanted, and arrived early afternoon at our awesome free campsite in the National forest not far from Douthat SP.

  This campsite is located on an old mill site on Wilson Creek.  It is in sort of a canyon with rock faces along the creek and a cascading waterfall.  One of the best campsites I have ever seen. 
  After quickly making camp, we mapped out a nice loop to ride catching the best of the Douthat trails and some national forest trails to get us back to camp.  We rolled some fire road and pavement back to the park and climbed Beards Mountain on Ross Camp trail.  Continuing on Mountainside Trail, we noticed that someone, perhaps park folks, had been doing some re-bench cutting.  Mountainside had gotten really narrow and I liked it that way.  They have widened it out to 3 feet in places.  It is all still fresh and soft and spoiled the ride a little.  I only hope it will repack and return to how it was with time.  They really should check with me before they decide to do this stuff. 

  We were relieved to find Brushy Hollow Trail untouched.  It was as awesome as usual.  Definitely one of the best trails in the state, perhaps the universe.

  We stopped to clear a couple of downed trees.

Swinging bridge over Wilson Creek.

There was a good amount of water flow in the creeks and we had fun splashing through Stoney Run as we started climbing Middle Mountain.  We took a break at Stoney Run falls before tackling the long climb up to the ridge.

  We made our way up the 9 switchbacks and over to the cabin at Tuscarora overlook.  The views were sweet as always.

  The sun was starting to set, so we made our way on up to Middle Mountain Ridge trail and enjoyed 5-6 miles of fast, rugged single track followed by the steepest descent with the tightest switchbacks I have ever seen that happens to dump us out right at camp.    After Rib-eyes and IPAs, we contemplated a night ride to enjoy the moonrise, but clouds and eventually rain drops sent us to bed.  Joel hit the tent, and I opted to hang the hammock in the van.  My entire sleeping set-up took 15 seconds.  I fell asleep to the pitter-patter of rain on the roof and the sound of the waterfall on the creek, wondering what to ride the next day.