Mill Creek

A month back I told Kate that I tend to binge stuff, so they might get tired of seeing me, and that's turning out to be true. I'm not sure if they're actually getting tired of seeing me yet, but I've certainly been binging the Cohuttas lately, and it's just so great to base out of Mulberry Gap that I've been seeing them quite a bit.

The last 3 rides went so well, that this past Saturday I figured it was time to try that Mill Creek loop again.

That Mill Creek loop is no joke. I only really discovered it this year, and I really think it's the longest sustained climb that I know of. I want to say Corbin Creek is 12 miles, but from Shorty Lenz to the top of the first kick after you turn on to FS68 is 13. And, I think Corbin Creek has some rollers. Anyway, it's a long, difficult climb, that just gets more difficult as you go. I suffered last time, but now that I was feeling good again, maybe I'd suffer less. That was the idea at least. We'll see...

I grabbed Waffle House again on the way out of town - "Order scramble well, dry toast, hold the grits, and a waffle." "You eat a lot of Waffle House, don't you?" "Heh, yes, I do."

Last time I was up there, I noticed that the iconic Ellijay signboard was missing all of its signs. This time I got a photo of it.

What's the story there? Are they just replacing the signs? Does the structure itself need maintenance? Will it disappear? It's such a landmark, I hope it doesn't go away for good.

Downtown Ellijay was buzzing too. There were tons of people milling around. The shops and restaurants were all very busy. It looked like how I think of Helen looking on a busy Saturday. Yet, traffic wasn't bad. It seemed ideal.

I made it to Mulberry Gap in good time, and got on the bike quickly. There were ten thousand people on CCC Camp Road. The picnic area was packed. The Emory Creek trailhead was packed and cars lined both sides of the road. People were fishing and swimming and just screwing around in the water. It made me happy to see everybody getting outside.

A guy on a motorcycle passed me as I crested a little hill, and I was able to keep within 100 yards of him for a really long time, until it finally flattened out and he could get on the gas. There were like 10 people just finishing up a ride at a parking lot further on, and we all waved to each other.

On the final half-mile or so out to the pavement, traffic was actually kind of bad. I got stuck in a line of cars, like 10+ cars ahead of me and what looked like the same behind. I could keep up with them, but not without a little effort. I feel fairly certain that I inhaled an unhealthy amount of dust through there.

When we hit pavement, the cars all sped by and I was on the road alone for a while. At Hassler's Cemetery, I saw a white truck with a tailgate pad. I'm pretty sure I saw the same truck in the same spot the last time I rode this loop.

I remembered the turn onto Ellijay-Crandall road this time, and made really good time down it.

This time, I also recognized the farm that I'd not recognized last time.

The fields used to be overgrown, and the farmhouse dilapidated. People rode ATVs all over the property, and you could come out through it from Rocky Flats. Now, it all looks renovated and active, and I imagine the current owner might frown on trespassing.

Somewhere along that road, I noticed a pair of jeeps pulled over, one with the hood up and a guy wrenching on it. I offered a hand, but he'd just finished fixing it. Turned out, he'd done some suspension work recently, but didn't have good enough damping somewhere (I don't know much about jeep suspension, so I'm sure this sounds silly), ended up getting a death wobble, managed to get it under control, but as he came to a stop, smoke and flames erupted from under the hood. He had a fire extinquisher, and put out the fire, but was initially at a loss to explain it. It didn't smell like fuel. Turned out that the power steering return hose had been clamped below the flange on the metal line and had just come off. The fire was presumably caused by power steering fluid spraying on the exaust manifold. None of us had ever seen or heard of that happening, but I guess it can. I wondered if he didn't ALSO have a fuel leak, but again, it didn't smell like fuel, and the spray pattern and the way he described what had been burning was consistent with power steering fluid. So weird. He'd reclamped the line and was checking hoses and wires when I'd ridden up. Miraculously, everything looked fine. He cranked it up, and it ran! No leaks, no problems. Awesome! Good luck jeep guys.

I hung a left on Shorty Lenz, and another on FS630. While initially steep, 630 tapers of quickly and feels about like Noontootla for most of it. It's less scenic, but it's a general pleasure to climb. I felt great, but I expected to. It was much later that the suffering switch might get flicked.

I had 2 bottles with me, both full of gatorade. There's a spring near the top of 630, that's allegedly almost always running, so I figured I'd tank up there when I got to it.

Ha! I eventually arrived at the spring, and it was bone dry. I even looked down the creek to see how far down I'd have to go if I had to. It was a LONG way. But, as it turned out, I'd gone through much less gatorade than I'd expected to. I still had about 1/4th of the first bottle left, and the whole second bottle. I felt certain that I could finish the ride on that. Worst case, I could turn around, bomb back down, go trapsing through the woods, and tank up from Mill Creek proper.

At Hickey Gap, there's a campground and probably a faucet, and definitely a stream running through it, but I felt like I still had plenty left, and I was making really good time, so I passed on that opportunity too.

At the intersection with FS17, the real climbing began. From there to FS68 is just one long, tough climb. It does flatten out a few times, but I don't think it ever descends for any significant distance. At some point, I passed this smashed copperhead...

...so I took a photo for Billy, because he hates snakes, and I'd think he'd be happy to know that there is one less living snake in the world. Sadly, its body was sustaining yellow jackets, which both of us despise, and which are, realistically, more likely to cause pain and suffering than a copperhead, which doesn't freaking fly! I actually like snakes, so, I'm not sure whether this particular loss was a net win or not.

Ahh, Mill Creek Overlook.

I relaxed a bit at the overlook, got my mind into "perpetual retrospect" mode and really enjoyed the view.

But, I didn't want my legs to get too cold, and I wanted to make it back in time for dinner, so I didn't stay as long as I might have liked. I made it to the top of the first kick after you turn left on FS68 and re-evaluated my drink situation. I had about half a bottle left. There were 2 big "rollers" between there and Potatopatch. If I didn't have enough to get over those rollers, then I'd have to turn around now. Otherwise I could get stuck between them and it would be seriously miserable. I was still feeling really good though. I was climbing well, for me at least, hadn't had the urge to walk at any point. No cramps. No proper suffering. I wasn't even thirsty. I felt like I could make it, as long as I didn't just bonk outright, and I'd been eating so I dind't expect that to happen either.

Onward.

All went as planned. I felt good on 68, all the way to Potatopatch. I mean, yeah, those climbs go on and on, and I always forget how many there are, and the details, and I'm always surprised how long that second one is, but considering all of that, I felt good.

There were 3 guys on motorcycles at Potatopatch, and we all said hello and waved.

The Bear Creek Overlook was surprisingly empty. Just myself, and one other car.

At Barnes Creek there were multiple families picnicing and enjoying the falls.

That descent is so long that when you have to start climbing that last little bit up Mulberry Gap Road, your legs are totally cold. Heh. I really felt the last little kick up to the barn.

But! I was done, and it had been a great time, despite what I'm told was crushing heat, and the minor Adversity with my water supply.

Regarding the heat... This cheap, thin, bargain basement, Amazon-special, SparX tri-kit has performed amazingly well all summer. I bought it because it was cheap and if it turned out that tri-kits in general suck, then it was no big loss, but I've been really happy with it. It's noticably cooler than a jersey over a bib, and the material is wonderfully thin and breathable, yet somehow adequately tough. The chamois was so poorly sewn in that it was trivial to remove, but somehow all of the rest of the seams are super durable. I may continue to buy these if the two that I have ever wear out.

I got back at 5:53. Dinner was served at 6:00 - Hamburgers, hot dogs, and sausage.

Just look at that!

There was also a multi-layer desert thing that I couldn't eat all of.

I ended up sitting around, drying off, and stinking the place up again, but this time, I ate outside for most of the time, and aired out pretty well before finally coming in and hanging out with people. Hopefully it helped. Really though, I need to just get up there a lot earlier.

Ha! Oh yeah, the TNGA is a week a way, and Andrew mentioned that they were having a staff meeting that evening about it. I just happened to walk by this whiteboard...

...and the surreality of it really struck me. I've mentioned before how my mental concept of the TNGA is somewhat stunted. I can relate to riders training all year for it, and to the crowd at the start, and I can relate to the experiences in the write ups and videos, and I can related to the logistics that Honcho and Koz before him had to manage. But, every now and then I'll see something that I didn't expect - like Kate had a manila folder that said TNGA on it a few years back, with who-knows what in it, and this past weekend there was a whiteboard with meeting points, and a staff meeting... It's grown such that behind-the-scenes work is being done, and this work requires business tools. There's pre-training, and onboarding, and master rosters! In reality, it's been that way for a long time, I just don't often see it firsthand. Every now and then I do, and I'm awestruck, and it's just surreal.

I'll be spectating this upcoming weekend, and I'm actually getting pretty excited!

Cohutta Pinhoti

So I had a good day at Noontootla, but that was all gravel, and it's relatively easy to have a good day on gravel. What about proper singletrack? Eh? I wasn't quite ready to go climb Stanley Gap or anything, but I figured P3 and P2 would be a good test of my fitness.

So, last Sunday, I grabbed some Waffle House on the way out of town, and made my way up to Mulberry Gap for some proper low-level Adventure.

I was greeted by the Cohutta Cat as I walked toward the main office. The Cohutta Cat likes the same kind of scratches that Delilah likes - all along the back, backwards against the grain of the fur. So much purring and licking. Sweet, sweet kitty. Ok, now get back to stalking and murder.

I checked in, talked to Kate and Tori a bit, then hit the trail. I can usually gauge how the day is going to be by how I feel on that first kick over Mulberry Gap proper. It went better than expected, so maybe the rest of the day would follow suit.

P3 was ideal.

Or, at least P3 was my concept of ideal. The tread was perfect - that little bit of leafy duff over tacky soil, but not so tacky that you leave tire tracks, just tacky enough to hold on... The rocks were dry. It was slightly overgrown, but not so overgrown that you couldn't rip everywhere, just enough to be like "yeah, I'm really in the woods".

Ha!

Seriously, I can't remember riding it where it was more like I wanted it to be.

I cleaned every switchback on the way out. I only had to get off once, to duck under a downed tree.

My legs felt great. My lungs felt great. My heart felt great. I wasn't really crushing it, but I was on the gas. It felt really good to be able to be on the gas again.

At Hwy 52...

...I hung a left and headed over to the Cohutta Overlook.

The rocks were just baking in the sun, and almost too hot to sit on. I hung out there for probably 15 minutes, trying to remember the names of the various ridges and mountains. I could see the Bear Creek Overlook, and I could identify the ridge that divides Windy Gap and Tibbs, as well as the ridge that ends at Potatopatch. I could barely see the tower on Grassy Mountain. Of course, Turkey Ridge was pretty clear. I couldn't see much to the northeast though. I guess I never noticed how much the trees get in the way during the summer.

A family drove up while I was there, and the mom and 2 kids looked like they'd been riding earlier. Turns out they had been, at Flat Creek no less. The dad and one of the sons were going to descend P3 later, and the mom and other son were going to pick them up at the bottom. It sounded like a good day.

I'd hoped to cool down a bit, and be sweating less profusely while descending, but I had no luck with that. There was a slight breeze, but the sun was blazing, and I was just getting hotter and more sweaty sitting there.

Time to ride back down.

P3 isn't entirely downhill in the other direction though, and there are a couple of switchbacks that you have to climb. The very last one is tricky. Not the switchback itself, but rocks and roots that you have to climb over after it. I sketched on that one, and ruined my otherwise perfect record that day. Dangit!

It almost goes without saying that I set various PRs coming down P3. This bike is effortlessly fast, conditions were perfect, etc.

I checked the time, and it looked like I had plenty of it before dinner at 6, so I headed out on Shakerag to P2. Shakerag was fast and fun.

As I hung a left onto the P2 approach, I noticed a sign I hadn't noticed before.

Nice.

I made it up the approach to the P2 parking lot without feeling like I'd put in much effort climbing. The grasstrack just sped by. You know you're feeling good when you suddenly realize that you've arrived the the P2 singletrack, instead of anxiously looking for it around every curve.

PRs on P2 as well. Go figure.

I did get a little wild in one curve. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I ended up getting a little bucked and did a bit of an extended Pedal Hang-5 to recover. Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong trick name. Where sitting on the seat, riding a nose wheelie, with one foot on the pedal, and the other kicking forward and backward to maintain the balance point. Whatever that is. I ended up doing that for longer than I wanted to get the back end down. But, it all worked out, and it wasn't scary, just definitely not what I'd planned.

I maded it back to MGap in time for dinner, but without enough time to get a shower first. On the one hand, this is good, because if I'm just completely soaking wet with sweat (as I was) then a shower doesn't feel all that good to me. If I'm that wet, then a shower just feels like more wet. Yeah, it cools you off, and yeah, you get clean, but I don't really enjoy it, per-se. I usually have to air dry first, and then it feels good. So that was the upside, I got a chance to sit around and dry off for a while. The downside was that while I was sitting around, drying off, I feel quite certain that I was also really stanking up the place.

But, at the time, that hadn't occurred to me, so I just enjoyed Donna's ribs and cornbread, and the company of the various MGap staff and clientele. Seriously, the ribs were outstanding - there was a dry rub AND bbq sauce, they were so tender and warm, and of course the meat just fell off the bone... The cornbread really made me happy though. Just big, bulk-chunk cornbread. Oh man, so good.

The post meal shower was sublime. I don't remember the drive home, so I guess it was uneventful.

It was a good day on the bike - the second in as many rides. I don't want to jinx it, but I might be getting back to normal.

Noontootla Figure-8

A couple of weeks back, I tried, again, to hit some non-system trails in the greater Blue Ridge WMA area, but again, just couldn't escape the weather. It rained a bit on the way up, but I didn't totally abandon the effort because by the time I got on Camp Wahsega Road, it looked like it hadn't yet rained there at all. Maybe I'd get lucky.

I parked at the Mt. Zion church across from Camp Merrill and took off up towards Cooper Gap pretty quickly. There were a bunch of other cars in the lot, and even more parked along either side of the road, so I figured I might run into to some folks as the day wore on.

Turned out yes. About 1/3rd of the way up to Cooper Gap, I was met by a dozen or more riders coming down on a variety of bikes, spread out by a minute or so each. In addition to them, I got passed by several vehicles heading up, and several more coming down.

It was a busy day in the mountains.

I'd felt comparatively good the previous time I'd been out there. Not fantastic, but a great deal better than any ride I'd done in July. I hoped to have another day like the last one, and as I hung a left at Cooper Gap, it was looking like I might. I felt like I'd expect to feel after climbing that particular climb. No suffering. Maybe a little fast, even.

There were 6 or 8 cars parked at Cooper Gap too, and some folks getting a camp fire going in one of the AT camp sites there.

FS42 was super dry.

Again, it looked like it hadn't rained there at all.

There was, surprisingly, nobody parked at the old quarry.

As I headed west, the road got damper, and here and there you could tell that it had rained earlier in the day, but looking up in the woods, it looked pretty dry. Like, it would have been fine to ride Horse Gap or Ace of Spades. Somewhere in there, I passed, and exchanged pleasantries with a couple who appeared to have hiked out on the AT, jogged over to the road, and were now hiking back. Somewhere past them, it got a good bit wetter, and the wind was blowing water out of the trees all over me. I could never tell if it was actually raining or if it was just tree drips, but I got pretty well soaked on the way over to Mauldin Gap.

Then it cleared up a bit.

At Puncheon Gap, there was leaf litter on the ground.

Poplar seems to turn yellow before anything else, and I always keep an eye out for the first Poplar leaves to fall. Those were the first I'd noticed this year. I declare that it's officially fall! Or, at least, at Puncheon Gap it is.

It actually rained a bit between Puncheon and Winding Stair Gaps, but then stopped and was even pretty dry at Winding Stair. There were a ton of people there too. Like 10 cars and a tow truck. I couldn't tell who the tow truck was going to tow, but I did notice that it was a truck from Grizzle Towing. Grizzle is a name I've seen in and around Dahlonega for 20 years. The Old Grizzle Store is at the corner of Nimblewill and Hwy 52. On Memorial and Veterans' Days, there are many Grizzles on the crosses that they put out all through town. If I got stuck at Winding Stair, and the tow truck that came to rescue me had the name Grizzle on the side of it, I'd feel pretty reassured.

Many of the cars that I saw throughout the day seemed out of place. For example, there was this BMW in a camp site at WSG.

Later, I got passed by two Mercedes Benzes and an Audi on Noontootla Creek Road. And not like SUVs. They were all luxury/sport cars. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Just past Winding Stair it had recently poured. I could even hear distant thunder. I checked the Ball Mountain Ridge approach trail and it was wet with a slip layer. It wouldn't have been impossible to ride, but I didn't want to spend my opportunity on those conditions, and it would only be better for the trail to get fewer passes. So, I put it off.

Again.

And it turned out that it was probably wise that I did, because it sprinkled on me off-and-on as I rode up over Springer Mountain, and the thunder behind me just grew louder the entire time.

I didn't set a PR coming down off of Buzzard Roost, but I'll bet that I came close. This bike is feels totally comfortable at terminal velocity in these mountains. I love it!

I hung a right at the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church...

...and continued past the Bill Bailey place.

I had, so far, not experienced the slightest bit of cardiac discomfort. I'd felt strong all day. Good lungs. Good legs. Good heart. I wasn't just sitting on hoping to recover on the downhills. I was actually on the gas, most of the time. I felt so good that I was able to really enjoy the ride. Not just the movement, but the trees, and the rocks, and even the weather. Just being out in it. It's amazing how much more you can appreciate all of that when your body feels good.

I may have mentioned this before at some point, but in the summer, when it's sunny, the dense leaves cast dark shadows. When it's rainy, it's just generally dark. So, in either case, when you come up over a hill, those bright white churches really beam. Photos don't really do it justice.

Bam!

Church!

It looks a little drab in the photo, but that's just a foggy lens and automatic digital color balance. In real life, it's striking.

I hung a right on Noontootla Creek Road, and struggled to get my phone to work well enough to get a photo of anything during the climb. The creek was raging, and really looked awesome, but it was actively raining most of the time, and there was just no way to get the touch screen to respond.

As I mentioned before, I got passed by multiple out-of-place-looking vehicles on the way up.

I didn't see any wildlife to speak of. No deer. No snakes. Very few birds even. That's been a bit of a trend this summer. Not much wildlife.

Again, I felt great climbing, I even felt strong through the kicks at the top. At Winding Stair, it was somehow totally dry. So patchy.

I set another PR coming down off of Winding Stair. I don't think I even touched the brakes until the first turn after PR Gap. There were some hikers at PR Gap, actually. I saw lots of hikers up there that day, I guess.

I crushed it over Little Bitch Gap with no trouble at all. There was some event going on at Camp Wahsega and it made me nostalgic for those first couple of Fools Golds. I finally started getting a little weary climbing from Camp Wahsega to where I was parked, but somehow still managed a PR on that section, even after sitting up.

Bam!

Church!

And that was it.

I felt DECIDEDLY better on that ride than I had for over a month. My best guess is that I had some kind of illness, the only notable symptom of which was that I'd feel like that specific kind of crap at times. Perhaps because blood vessels wouldn't dilate as much as they otherwise would under various circumstances. Maybe? It seems like that's the kind of thing your body might do when its under attack, basically to make you rest. I don't know for sure though. Maybe Kirk would know...

At any rate, I packed it up, grabbed more delicious dinner at Ray's in Dawsonville, and noticed this funny sign in the bathroom.

Heh, yeah. Boys.