Pinelog

Earlier today, I had the urge to ride, as often occurs on Sunday. I actually had the urge yesterday too, but it was ridiculously windy. So, I didn't just have today's urge to appease, but yesterday's as well. I felt like riding at Allatoona, and specifically a trail that I've apparently never ridden there, so I grabbed a slice at Siracusa's, figured out that we'd apparently sprung forward last night, and hit the road in that direction. As I pulled into the lot, I could tell that I'd made a mistake. There were like 6 cars, total in the lot. It was a little cold - mid 40's, but not so cold that I'd think it would ward off the hundreds of folks that you'd usually find there on the weekend.

I checked the trail status on the web, and yeah, the trail was closed. Blankets was closed. Rope Mill was closed. Everywhere was closed. It rained, really hard, Friday night, and though it was super windy all day yesterday, which dried out the roads pretty well, the trails were still too wet to ride.

Dangit!

Time for Plan B.

I was kind-of up 75/575 already, so I considered heading up to Ellijay, but that would take a while. Pinelog was the next best option. Yeah! Pinelog! I hadn't been there in forever. The more I thought about it, the more that wished that I'd thought of Pinelog first.

A half hour later I was in the lot, getting ready to roll. I could tell that it was chilly, but the sun was out and as long as it was on me, I felt pretty good. So, I added a base layer, but no arm or leg warmers. There were several other cars in the lot when I got there, but they were all saying animated goodbyes to each other as I got ready, and they left shortly after. Another car pulled up though, and an elderly couple jumped out with some fishing rods. It seemed a bit cold to me, but I'm not much of a trout fisherman, so I figured they must know what they're doing.

It's been too long since I climbed anything that could reasonably be described as "a mountain" so I was a little cautious with the rollers on the way in. My rear brake maybe has 15% of the stopping power it ought to have too, so I was also a little cautious with the first couple of downhills.

I had my fitness and braking situtation pretty well figured out though, by the time I got to the Lewis Furnace.

There were a bunch of cars parked at the gate by the ford, and most of them had bike racks on them. Maybe I'd run into someone else later.

My plan was to spin a loop to the right around Grassy Hollow Road, come back in and spin a loop to the left over Pine Log Gap, through the old mines, out to the road, and back in through the city of White.

Not 200 yards up the road, I ran into a guy picking up trash with his dog. I actually ran into the dog first, a slightly overweight chocolate lab, named Lily if I remember correctly. Despite being soaking wet, that dog got so many scratches. I talked to the guy for a while actually. He'd recently seen a bear up near Grassy Hollow proper, which was interesting to me. I think I'd once before heard of a bear sighting out there, but only once. He said the DNR has recorded 22 sightings, and a few of the bears in the area are tagged. So, I guess Pinelog is, for real, bear territory. I guess that makes some sense, as one of the knobs of Pine Log Mountain itself is called Bear Mountain. He'd never seen pigs out there, and was surprised to hear about the dozens that I'd seen. It was funny, we both got to talking, and seemed to both realize right about the same time, that we actually had things to do, so we said some quick goodbyes and got back to it.

There are two tough climbs on Grassy Hollow Road, one right after the other. Both were freshly, and well, graveled though, and despite being loaded, I had an easier time than usual with both. I think the slight damp helped too. Those kicks are often difficult because of how loose they are. I managed to get a PR on the second, which made me wonder how Strava actually does it's PRs. Do you have to have at least 2 efforts on a segment to get a PR? Or, if someone creates a new segment, do you just get a PR the first time you ride it? If someone creates a segment on some section that you've already ridden, do your old rides retroactively get PRs? As a database-driven web-based application developer, I can imagine the pain in the ass it would be to do that, but I can also imagine exactly how to do it, so... ???

I passed the spot where the guy had seen the bear. No bear today.

There's this one spot that used to offer a really spectacular view of Little Pine Log Mountain, but the trees have since grown back in.

I guess that's good for the woods, but I'm also glad that I was able to enjoy it when it was cut.

You cross like 4 or 5 little rivulets on the way out, and I managed to keep from getting too wet, but it kind of made me happy to get splashed some amount. I've been riding a lot of local trails lately, and there are always bridges over water crossings on local trails.

When I got back on the road, I passed Stamp Creek Baptist Church...

...and its associated cemetery.

Once again, it's clear why churches have traditionally been painted white. The front face was just a blazing beacon in the early afternoon sun. The photo really doesn't do justice to just how bright it was, or how it stood out when it came into view.

I managed a slight front wheel slide as I pulled back into the parking lot off of the main road, and smirked when I didn't crash. Cuidado ai Dave.

Feeling like I had a solid grasp of my fitness and what I'd be able to get away with, I pushed a little harder on the rollers this time, but I think 4 trucks passed me before I finished the initial climb. I used to make a game out of trying to stay ahead of vehicles on those rollers, but there was no chance of that today. I did pass them all at the bottom of the first downhill though, and managed to stay well ahead of them all the way to the furnace.

So, ha!

Just past the furnace I had to stop for a minute, and got passed again by a red truck. We then leapfrogged each other like 3 times over most of the way up to the gap.

About halfway up, I ran into another guy on a bike. He'd just parked at the furnace, ridden up to the gap, and headed back down. We joked about how tough a winter it had been for both of us. Neither of us were really confident in our fitness, and we'd both been proceeding cautiously.

I passed a dozen little side trails on the way up. I recoginzed Sasquamish, which is also where that weird rock wall runs up the mountain. The rest were all familiar, but I couldn't tell you where any of them actually go any more. There was a time though, when I knew them all. Sadly, most were just old logging spurs, and they didn't go anywhere. The only mildly interesting one led way back south along the ridge of Little Pine Log for miles, only to end abruptly without connecting to anything else.

Just past the gap, there's a pipe gate. Someone was clearly frustrated with the DNR for keeping it closed too long into some season or other.

I love how someone scratched out the profanity.

With all the recent rain, the Bluff Mine Pond was overflowing.

It was actually higher than the level of the old rail cut, and pouring out the overflow to the bottom left of the photo. I could hear what sounded like a powerful flow across the pond; presumably water flowing into it, but there's no easy way over there, and I didn't feel like hacking through the brush for half an hour.

The water poured out of the pond, down a ditch next to the road, through a culvert under it, and off into who knows where from there.

Recent work on the culvert appeared to have dug up an old chunk of rail.

It made me wonder if there was more buried under the road nearby. As far as I can tell, the Bluff Mine was located at farthest extent of the old Iron Belt Line. That piece rail had been part of the very tail end of it all.

I checked out the Sugar Hill Pond too. It was right there, I mean come on.

It was unexpectedly tranquil. There was a very slight breeze making tiny, high frequency waves ripple all the way across the pond. The water level was super high, and there was a bunch of duckweed off to the right out of the shot. I ended up standing there for quite a while just enjoying the chill.

Just up the road I passed the Painted Rocks (well, that's what I call them), and once again, photos just don't do them justice.

Though the iPhone SE definitely does a better job than the 4s I was using the last time I took a photo of them.

Further up there was a pretty good blowdown across the road.

It looked really fresh, like yesterday-fresh. There were several more a few hundred yards further down.

The Cripple Creek Ore Bank had become a pond again. It'll dry up later for sure, but today it was deep.

Some time ago, I'd gotten a random text from Doug asking about the Double Chimney, and I sent him the location. He ended up not making it out to them, but I remembered the exchange as I approached the upper field, and it motivated me to go stomping around a bit. There's a bit of an old roadbed leading from the field directly to the chimneys, but there's also kind-of one running around the west side of the hill. I mistook the latter for the former, and got even more confused by a recent-ish blowdown just to the west of the chimneys, but I eventually found them.

I was concerned that the trees might have come down on top of them, but no, there were pretty good tangles to either side, and even some in front and behind, but somehow, not directly on them.

There's always a good view of Pine Log Mountain proper from one of the fields out there.

And, I guess another one across the lake, though I usually end up just looking at the lake.

There were fish hitting the surface pretty constantly. If you zoom in on the photo, you can actually see several sets of circular waves spreading out from near the middle of the lake.

I passed two separate hikers heading in as I approached the north gate. One guy seemed woefully unprepared. No pack, no obvious water. Just a phone in his hand and some earbuds. He couldn't even hear me heading toward him, even though I waved and said hello, and was startled to see me when he finally looked up. The other guy was hiking in with at least 60 pounds of gear. I couldn't tell if he was legitimately camping or just out for a ruck, but he was moving with a purpose when I passed him.

Chimney near the north gate.

There were three cars parked at the north gate. Two probably belonged to those hikers. The other had a bike rack on it. I hadn't seen anyone out there other than that one guy, so who knows what they were up to?

I took the road back around to the lot. Not having ridden it in a long time, it seemed a lot longer than I remembered. Another thing I hadn't remembered was that there's a Lauren Road that intersects, pretty soon after you get on the pavement. It used to always remind me of my niece when I'd see it. Back when I used to ride there a lot, I'd see her most weekends during football season at my brother's house. It's been a long time though. Seeing it again reminded me of all that, and it made me smile a little.

As I pulled into White, it looked like the local gift shop had turned into MAGA headquarters. "Jesus is my Savior and Trump is my President" was my favorite flag. I almost stopped to take a photo of it. I should go back and buy it, just to have it as a curiosity 20 years from now.

The road from White back to the lot becomes a wall where it crosses through Wolfpen Gap, then there are 2 rollers, or maybe three before it drops back down. When I used to ride there a lot, I'd try to tempo climb the whole set. If I could, then my fitness was good. If I couldn't, then I had some work to do. I was discouraged today when I had to sit back and climb the first kick, but then realized that I'd never ridden it loaded before as I headed into the first roller. Come to think of it, the last time I road unloaded was the Turkey Shuffle. I don't know if that's good or bad. I guess it's good for building strength, but maybe not so good for ripping singletrack or tempo climbing.

Near the top of one of the rollers, a guy passed me some classic car, a GTO maybe, with a really awesome flame job. Yellow, orange, and red, straight out of the 60's. My mental Jukebox cranked Slow Ride from Foghat right away. Which, I guess, is from the '70s, but whatever. He drove by slowly and waved, so I got a really good look at it. I was kind of on the rivet at the time, but it still made me smile.

I was still smiling when I passed Miller's Chapel...

...which didn't gleam quite so brightly, as the sun was starting to get kind-of low in the sky.

I want to say it was like 7:20 when I left. Or maybe it was 7:20 when I passed the Wendy's. Either way, it was later than I think about it being when it's still light out. Ha ha! No more having to cram mid-week rides in halfway through the day. At least until next Fall. Actually, I guess that's how it is every year.

Funny that I'm still surprised by it.