Squeezing in the last of the Pisgah “Seasonals”

I had a great weekend in Pisgah trying to squeeze the last bit of life out of the seasonal trails this year. In Pisgah some of the trails are referred to as “seasonal” meaning that they are only open to bikes during the winter months (Oct. 15th – April 15th) when hiker traffic is low. It’s only a handful of trails but some of them are among the best trails in the forest and some of them help tie trails together to make loops that just aren’t achievable otherwise. Jeff, Thomas, Eric, Levi and I met up in Brevard on Saturday. On the way in Jeff and I spotted DJ’s car at a local bike shop so we stopped in and recruited him and his wife to join us for the day. We snagged the last roadside campsite along the river by the stables. This spot just happened to be on the opposite side of the river from the road and that made for allot of fun all weekend. Once we set up camp we made our way over to the hatchery and made a loop up the fire road down Long Branch and Cat Gap then we loaded up and went over to North Slope for a quick spin around. Not too much ridding Saturday and all at an easy pace in preparation for Sunday.



Sunday was what this trip was all about, I have had the route I’ve wanted to do for a while but have never had a group that was interested in the idea and everything come together to pull it off. It’s a shuttled point-to-point ride and goes a little like this…. Laurel Mountain -> Pilot Rock -> 476 -> The Pink Beds -> Club Gap -> Avery Creek -> Clawhammer -> Presley Cove -> Black Mountain. It’s not that long at about 25, and the climbs aren’t that horrid, but the descents are some of the finest around. To get Pilot, Avery, and Black Mountain all in one day is as much as any mountain biker could ask for. So we met another crew from Knoxville (Jay, Jen, Shawn, John, Chris, and John from the UK)at the bottom of Black mountain Sunday morning to consolidate gear into a few shuttle vehicles and head to the beginning. It’s about a 30 minute shuttle drive and I think a few folks where getting nervous about the whole idea. One of the Participant (John from the UK) had just moved to the US a few days before, wandered into Harpers Bike shop and bought a bike, this was his first ride in the States and his first ride on his new Heckler. I have to say that Britt ripped. The ride went off like clockwork, You would be hard pressed to get a better group together for such an unknown undertaking. We lost a couple of folks at the bottom of Avery but the majority pulled through. I think everyone agreed that this is one of the best routes they had ever done in Pisgah.

Unfortunately I didn’t get the camera out too much all weekend. Thomas has some nice pictures over at Harvest the Ride to check out though.