Old Rag

  Went for a nice hike out in Shenandoah National Park last Saturday with Michele, Steven, and his friend Joseph.  Michele wanted to hike "Old Rag".  We have hiked Old Rag a few times before in different seasons and it never disappoints.  It is one of the most popular hikes in VA and it was busier Saturday than I have ever seen it.  It is more of a rock scramble near the summit and the views are amazing.

All backed up.

No. It's not that. The morning coffee seems to take care of that.
I seem to be way backed up on Blog entries. I have one started from last weekend and two more crazy adventures to ramble about. Just can't find the time to write 'em up. Blogging is hard, and time consuming.

So, stay tuned if you want to hear the random ramblings about a 40 mile icy, leafy, rocky, cold, and dark mountainbike adventure; an incredible hike with Michele, Steven, and his friend Joseph; a huge, rugged hike/run with Michele yesterday; and who knows what this awesome autumn afternoon holds.....

Monster X Mash

  We did the Mash, we did the Monster Cross Mash......

                                                               Happy Halloween

  To celebrate Halloween and my Birthday, Joel and I, once again, headed west for another cross bike adventure.  We had almost decided to take it easy this weekend and do a nice local ride, but Friday night I was looking over an awesome course I had mapped out and was suddenly inspired to go for it.  I checked with Joel and he was in.  We both agreed we needed to try harder to get out of town earlier.  We were loaded, gassed up, and rolling by 8ish.  We reached the parking lot in record time.  It was basically all interstate and a smooth roll.

  There was a nice fall chill in the air when we got out and Joel built his bike up for the ride.

Here is the course:



  The ride is a metric century covering right about 62 miles taking us through the counties of Alleghany, Botetourt, and Rockbridge.  I decided to alter the starting point from my original map.  I figured we would dive right into the biggest climb while we were fresh, and also this was the nearest and most convenient point to pick up the course.  Why drive another 20-30 minutes when we could be riding?  The parking lot is right off of I-64 at the Goshen exit, a little west of Lexington.  There is a nice scenic drive that goes up and over North Mountain with some of the best views in VA.  I had driven past this treasure for years on my way to Douthat State Park and didn't even know it was there. 
  Anyway, once Joel finished building his bike, we started grinding up the scenic gravel climb.

  The grade was fairly steep, but after a few miles we had reached the ridge line and were treated to awesome views to the north and south.  We found a path that led to a sweet overlook.

                                                       Lake Robertson to the southeast.

Big House Mountain.

  A little further up we picked up some single track, North Mountain Trail.  This is one of the sweetest rocky ridges in the state. (perhaps the world).  I had hiked this with the family before so I was already aware of the rocky cliffs and endless views. 

  We were tempted to ride the whole trail through to Longdale Furnace, but with lots of hunter trucks parked in the area and in the interest of time, we only rode a mile out and back on the rugged rocky ridge.  It turns out riding rocks on the cross bike is a blast.

                                         

                                     

After saying goodbye to the awesome ridge, we descended the northwest face of North Mountain down to the Longdale furnace area.  This was a crazy fast, curvy descent on relatively smooth gravel and we passed a car on the way down.

  At the bottom, we rolled the flat pavement of Rt. 60 for a few miles past Longdale Furnace.  The traffic wasn't bad and you couldn't miss us in our hi-vis jackets.  We had fooled around quite a bit up on the ridge and decided we had better knock out some miles.  Our next turn put us on a nice paved back road that crossed the Cowpasture River and had a couple of short, steep climbs and descents.  The Cowpasture joins the Jackson about a mile or so downstream to form the mighty James River.  We crossed over Rt. 220 and followed the James for the next several miles.  The scenery, which started out great, remained that way for the entire ride.  It was very quiet with almost no traffic.  If not for a few hunters wandering around, we would've had the place to ourselves.  The terrain varied greatly and  after climbing a bit, we were always rewarded with a nice downhill.  In fact, we always seemed to come out on the better end of the deal.  A brief roll down 220 brought us to a nice store where we took a break and re-fueled.  After our stop, it was back to dirt and gravel for the next several miles with a few long and steep climbs followed by fast descents.  I entered a couple of turns a little hot on the gravel and did some drifting.  Nearly ate it but kept the rubber side down.  The scenery remained excellent and we always seemed to be following an awesome stream.

Big House and Little House Mountains.

                               A really cool steel bridge and old mill brought us back to pavement.

A few miles brought us past Collierstown onto Big Hill Rd.  The name of this road concerned me a bit.  Soon enough, of course, we got to see where it got its name.  A super steep climb had us standing, barely turning the cranks.  It was tough on 50 mile legs but we both stuck it out and made it to the summit.  We were rewarded once again with the steepest, fastest downhill of the ride.  After turning onto the final leg of the ride, we were met with one last grueling climb to the truck.  This one got pretty steep also and it took some will power to stick it out for a few miles. 
  Aside from ending on a climb, the ride went extremely well and we both really liked the route.  This is definately one to do again and again and I would like to drag along some more company to share this awesome ride.



Gravel Grinding

This past Sunday, Joel G. and I decided to head out to the Blue Ridge for a little mountain cross riding.  We had been looking over the forest map and picked out a ride combining some gravel fire roads and the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Our route was to cover 50 or so miles.  We wanted to get an early start, but early for me and Joel usually ends up being after 9.  It was noon before we found our parking spot and started getting ready to ride.  It was a really nice fall day out and the gravel road that we parked along leading up to the Appalachian Trail at Hog Camp Gap was surprisingly busy.  We dove right in and started with a climb up to the gap. 

After crossing the AT, we had a nice downhill then some rolling up and down until we crossed the AT again at Salt Log Gap.  After that, we enjoyed an incredible 6 mile descent following the Piney River.

The Piney River is perhaps the nicest mountain stream I have ever seen.  Crystal clear water cascading over huge boulders.  Rock slides.  Beautiful foliage everywhere. 

There were lots of great campsites along the Piney.  I definately plan to return and spend some time there.
The scenery along the road was great.

At this point the ride was going great and we were making good time.  The next turn changed things.  I take full responsibility since it was my idea.  The map shows a jeep road that goes  up and crosses the AT then joins FR826 above Crabtree Falls.  I had been up 826 a few times to park for hikes on the AT to The Priest and Spy Rock, so I was familiar with that.  The jeep road from the Piney River up to the AT was new and unfamiliar.  We thought "how bad can it be?".  It was pretty bad.  The Jeep road followed Shoe creek and crossed it several times.

The climbing was managable for the first mile or two, and most of the creek crossings were do-able.

The grade started to get steeper and the loose rocks eventually became too much for the 40c cross tires and 39/18 single speed gearing.The going got rougher and steeper and at times hard to even walk.  This type of thing isn't exactly new to me and Joel and he was a good sport about it.  We usually just endure it and try to push through it.  The worst part really is that we killed a lot of time. Along the way we encountered some folks on dirt bikes(which looked like fun) and some good ole' boys doing completely ridiculous things with huge jacked up trucks. We must have pushed a mile or two before we finally got to the top and crossed the AT for the third time.

 
Finally, it was time to go down for a bit.  The first half mile or so was crazy steep and rocky.  We wished we were on the mountainbikes.

I had only been on 826 in the Pathfinder and didn't realize that we had more climbing to do.  Eventually we descended down to Rt. 56 near the Montebello fish hatchery.

We took a little snack break and even though we brought lights, decided we had better shorten up the ride since we lost so much time.  We decided to just ride 56 up to the Blue Ridge Pkwy. and head south.

We had ridden this section of parkway before and new that we would be treated to a long fast descent down to Irish Gap.  First we had a few miles of flat spinning and slight climbs, so we took in the scenery.

The descent didn't dissappoint.  We coasted for miles at 30-35 mph.  With bigger gears and skinnier tires I imagine one could almost reach the speed of sound here. 

Once at Irish Gap, we picked up Clarktown Rd. which descended a few more miles along the origin of the Pedlar River.  A climb up past Staton's Creek Falls, followed by a crazy steep climb then descent on Coffeetown rd. brought us to the final climb up to the car.  It was pretty much dark as we loaded up.   All in all a great day in the mountains.   There is a bunch of great cross riding out there and I'm already mapping out the next ride.