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.