Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Summer Flys and August Dies

I’ve lived in WNC for over two years now and spend most of my recreation time in the Pisgah Ranger District but headed into the Appalachian District this weekend for some biking and hiking fun on trails that were all new to me.

Saturday I joined the Extreme Tomato and Ohio Rob and a few others for a nice day of riding in the Coleman Boundary. I’ve often wanted to check it out but have never quite gotten around to it. We managed to hit most of the trails and I had quite a good time. We started out with the long gradual climb up FR74 to Laurel Ridge. The climb was long and I used it as a chance to try and get my bearings and a lay of the land. By the time we hit Laurel Ridge we had climbed over 2200′ and were well into the clouds. Laurel is an old grassy road bed that was very wet and the spray from our tires combined with the heavy fog made for a somewhat sketchy descent to our turn onto Bear Pen. Jonathon was in the lead and blew past the trail intersection so we waited for him to make his way back before we took the plunge onto Bear Pen for my first taste of the Coleman Boundary single track. It was rocky, loose, badly eroded and I was happy to take up the rear. It was a fun downhill and there were lots of optional jumps that someone had built.

After Bear Pen we crossed the road and continued the downhill fun on Staire Creek. There were a few very technical sections one of which required a dismount as I just wasn’t feeling the downhills. When we got to the bottom we decided to turn around and climb back up Walker Creek for another loop. I really prefer going up to down and was having fun seeing how much of it I could ride and then how fast I could push when I couldn’t ride any more. We hit the road again and immediately crossed it and continued the climb up Perkin’s Rd. Though it started as a road it quickly became a trail and the steep climbing continued without respite. I was still trying to see how much I could ride and took an unspectacular spill trying to ride up a rocky stretch I had no business trying to ride up. We regrouped at a stream and then I pushed with Jonathon for awhile and told him the story of my trip to the Atlanta ‘00 Phish shows.

Perkins spit us out on Laurel Ridge and we took a left and headed for Little Andy. The trails are marked at the bottom so we had to look a little for our turn but found it without a problem. The Little Andy downhill was fast, fun and technical like the others but it was over all too fast. The climb up had taken us over an hour and the downhill took less than five minutes. My kind of ride!

From there we took Elk Pen back to the cars. This was the trail of the day. It started out fast and flowy and then super tight technical sections popped up without warning and gave way to buff buff singletrack just as easily. There was a very tricky little stream crossing that none of us managed to make and then a little more easy cruising before we were back at the picnic area.

Our route was:

FR74 > Laurel Ridge > Bear Pen > Staire Creek > Walker Creek > Perkins > Laurel Ridge > Little Andy > FR74 > Elk Pen

It looked like this:

Pictures:

Sunday I was up at 5:15 and headed back to the same area with the dog and the hiking shoes. Our goal for the day was the Little Snowball tower site and from Craggy Gardens it was easy enough. We got our start at first light but were on the West side of the ridge and didn’t get to witness the full sunrise:

Duma was feeling photogenic in the early morning light and stopped frequently for his picture to be taken:

Along the way we found this spring – I’ve never seen one housed before. I’m guessing it was for whoever was manning the tower. Duma was thirsty and drank out of it like it was a water fountain:

The firetowers used to be manned and they had to have a way to get up there and without a road shown on the map I was curious to see where they came up. I found the answer by poking around the flowers at Snowball Gap where I found the old road bed that came up from Stoney Fork:

We stopped at the tower site for a snack and chance to soak in the limited views. Snowball with Mt. Mitchell hiding behind her in the clouds:

On the way back Duma couldn’t help but to stop again at the lookout on Hawkbill Rock for more pictures:

I had to go up to see what he was looking at:

Our route:

An early start combined with a short hike meant when I got home there was still enough time left for a road ride in the rain before heading off to Papas and Beer for una cerveza muy fria!

Posted by clay at 14:31:57 | Permalink | No Comments »