May 8, 2015

I love – Short Work Thursdays.  If I plan my work week just right I can get home in time to spend a few hours riding in the woods.  I managed that yesterday and headed out to FS240, Vepco Road off of Little Dry River Rd.

I forded the creek crossing (feeling a little wild – with trailer in tow) and drove up to the first right hand branch , 240E, which is where I parked, unloaded, and headed down.

After passing the closed FS gate, the path was peppered with spearmint plants adding to the blooming tree aroma.  I stayed straight where the trail split.  It narrowed down and soon the old fire road became chocked with small trees.  It was clear someone has kept up a foot path.  There were trees cut back and branches broken back and it was rather passable.  Although after a bit there were three downed trees across the path and I decided to turn around.

 
When I got home I looked at the satellite image on my tracker and if I had just gone a little father it appears to have opened up to a clearing with trails off of it.  Nuts, I suppose Ill have to go back to this spot!

I went back to the split and headed down (left branch)

There were a few creeks along the way and the terrain changed several times I stayed right when the trail split again, and continued to the end.  It broke down into an over grown trail, and I eventually turned around, just after this pile of rocks. 

Heading back to the split, I made a right (which would have been a left on my descent), and checked out the two branches this lead to.

Nothing super spectacular, but I did see some pretty terrain, lots of growth, and some eggs in a slow moving creek.

Returning to my start, I decided to adventure in another direction.

Just a slight ride down the fire road brought me to another closed FS gate to the left, just before the power lines.  I crossed the power line path and took a trail through the woods for a while.  I saw a lot of bear poo and scratched up trees.  I turned around after a bit and explored the power line area for the views before calling it for the day.

On the way out I stopped at the creek ford and washed some of the mud off the dogs.

I did not make good time, or pound out a ton of miles, but I really enjoyed this ride.  Everything smelled amazing.  Everything was green and colorful.  The air was warm and it felt good to be in a tank top.  I also coated Simon, the dogs and myself in fly spray before we headed out.  Making this the first ride of the year that was permeated by the smells of fly spray and sweaty pony.

April 3, 2015

*My tracker cut off and did not get my entire ride back in the below images. 

Last Sunday I went back to Turner Run and checked out a trail I have been wanting to follow.  It appears to have been a fire break, with burned forest only to the right hand side of it, and is wide and clear and rather new.  It is rocky and goes steeply down for a while.  It eventually starts to level out and then comes to an extremely vertical down at a creek bed.  The down is only about (if memory serves me – curse my waiting nearly a week to write this) two pony lengths long and ends on a flat creek side.

 

Once down the bank onto the creek side you have two options.

1. Cross the creek and follow the lovely trail to the right.  I did this first.

2. go left and cross the creek and then up the hill.  I did this a bit later and will add details later.

 

So going across the creek and heading left is a nice, well used trail.  It will split just a little ways up, and although going straight (a little to the left) is possible, this trail is older and mostly sucked with downed trees.  It was clearly more used angling to the right.  The trail crosses the creek a few times and eventually pulls up behind Slate Lick Lake.

There are a couple markers from out by the lake (in the open grass field that is to the left in the second and third photos below).

I turned around and headed back to OPTION 2!  Along the way back you can see a trail rather clearly on the other side of the creek. And again, I did investigate and it sucked.  But have at it if you want, I certainly didn’t explore all of it.

So back to the creek bed where you were faced with two options, left and right.  Heading right is a bit more of a blind start to a trail, although there are some pink marking tape up, you go into the creek, walking just a bit up it and then cross the it and go up the hill.  There is another lovely trail, with pink tape markets along it that follows the creek.

Both trails had plenty of foot and hoof traffic evidence.

I rode this for a while, going slightly up for the majority.  At a few points the trail was a bit hard to see when it crossed the creek but looking for a pink marker tape helped out.  Finally it did seem like it was petering out, and I was down in a deep creek ravine.  I think I must have missed the trail at that point, but I new we were super close to the fire road.  So I climbed Simon up a hill and we went a just a little farther up, and the fire road was just a head.  the final few lengths were extremely steep, and I would not attempt to ride down there, but it popped up onto the fire road.

At this point I remember from a previous ride seeing a pink flag tied to a fallen branch of the side of the road, but it didn’t appear to lead any where.  This is where it popped out.

I took the photo below while riding away.  If going up the fire road the flag is on the left right where the road bends.  If you look hard you can spot it in this photo.

It was a pretty cool trail, both down and up and it being a loop to the lake and back is pretty neat too.  I think my choice for a future ride will be to take the first trail on the left, the one I rode on a week or two ago that starts out the back of a graveled pull off on the left of the fire road, and then coming back up either of the two trails I did on this ride.

This particular ride was about 11 miles, and I did do a bit of wondering and exploring on the bottom.  It would probably be more like a 9-10 mile loop without any detours.