pisgah to panthertown

From Chestnut Cove to Bent Creek Gap on the Shut In is three miles of flatness. It is gently rolling indeed and that flat stretch is going to be critical during the race. My Shut In goal is reasonable, I want to finish, and realistically I know it is going to be difficult. My first challenge will be making it to Bent Creek Gap before the time cut off. If I can't run those three flat miles fast I'm going to DNF at the half way point. If I make the cut off then there is only climbing in front of me and though I'm sure it will hurt more than I can imagine I'm sure I can drag my weary shit ass up to the top. So this weekend was sandwiched between two out and back runs across that critical stretch. Friday after work and then again yesterday afternoon.



Saturday I met Zach at the Fish Hatchery for our last ride before the Double Dare. We headed up 475 but must have made a wrong turn somewhere along the way because after several hours we found ourselves in a different national forest and trail system all together. Panthertown.



We headed in for a few hours of exploring. There were plenty of map checks and some surprises. I'd been there before so when I saw a very faint bit of single track and a small cairn I had a hunch that would be the trail and it was. At one point Zach remarked that the Pisgah District could have looked like this 20 years ago and that is probably true. We didn't ride all of it, never made it up Big Green, but got a little taste which seemed to be just enough.













It had taken us over three hours to get there and we thought the return trip would take just as long but it turned out the return trip was 100% downhill so it only took us a third of that which could only mean we had time for Butter. On the way a couple of the local drunks popped out of the woods and it felt like Wednesday night all over again.



Nothing is finer than Autumn in Pisgah and the Hatchery was a zoo. We stumbled into another member of the wndc and had a nice little crew rolling into the Hub. Zach and I got the last two free pint glasses as a nice reward for our foray into foreign lands.