sweet blossom daydream

Sixty degrees and sunny - welcome to Pisgah in January!

The last thing I wanted to ride this weekend was Laurel but when we met at Fisherman's everyone else wanted to go up 1206 and Laurel suddenly seemed like the perfect choice for a sunny morning. We picked up another rider in the parking lot in the form of 17 year old Adam on his self made Smoke bike. He passed me on the way up 1206 and he and Zach spent the rest of the day chasing each other around. The last thing I wanted to do was try and keep up with a 17 year old on the way up Laurel.





While each of us had managed to fall on the climb up to Yellow Gap due to the ice Laurel Mountain was a nice and dry ribbon of single track through the woods. When there were patches of snow they were deep and I was surprised to find that the only tracks were those I had left the previous weekend.

Notice how nice and shiny Jonathon's bike is in this picture. Don't worry, Jonathon, I'm sure it will still look as good after the Icycle.



Here Jody and Jonathon try and reassure Adam that they are actually very respectable and upstanding citizens. Fathers themselves, in fact.



The descent down to Big Creek was interesting. While Laurel had been snow free for the most part the drop down was not a sunny South slope and was still covered in snow. Dropping 2000 vertical feet on a trail covered in a foot of wet snow is interesting. It was literally impossible to stop using your brakes. You could slow a little and skid but that was about it. I got going a little too fast and started to skid. With no way to stop I went right into a tree at full force taking the brunt of the impact with the side of my face and helmet. Ouch. Zach caught up and remarked that it was impossible to stop and I told him I had noticed.

We hit the creek and the snow let up but there was the creek. Of course it was 60 degrees out but something about multiple creek crossings in winter is just too much fun.



From there it was up Spencer, down Fletcher and back. A nice little Pisgah ride.

Sunday it was still nice out so I took the dog up to the top of Bearwallow to hang out for a bit. Surprisingly we had it all to ourselves and just hung out in the sunshine, gazing at the mountains.

The Blacks:



Craggy Dome:



Mt. Mitchell:



Pisgah:



D-Man:



Tree:



Tower: