Bearhoti

When I was in Texas, I'd gotten to feeling pretty good. I could stay on the gas for two hours at a time. I was enjoying being out in the elements. No urge to go back inside, even in the wind and heat. That changed a bit when I got back home though. Isabel was coaching her teams at a gym meet up in Cumming, hosted by the Gymsations, her home team! I couldn't miss that. But, I think now that everybody is getting out again, we're spreading around germs that had been isolated to our own communities. Maybe. Who knows for sure, but the point is, I caught a cold and was back on the couch for a week.

But, then as quickly as it came, it went again, and during the week that followed, I felt as good on the bike as I had in Texas. But, these were local rides, and since no amount of not climbing in the mountains can keep me in shape for climbing in the mountains, I headed up to Mulberry Gap last weekend to put in some work.

I figured I'd ease into it with the Bearhoti and maybe add in P3 at the end if I was still feeling good. So, I checked in, and while I was at it, grabbed a pair of gloves. At Mulberry Gap, you can get Handups with "Ride the Pinhoti" on the palms and some MGap-themed artwork. My existing pair were getting worn. Not worn out, but definitely worn, and I needed some fallbacks.

A quick-change later and I was rolling out, and feeling good.

I headed north, passed the firetruck...

...and hung a right up CCC Camp.

Almost immediately I ran into Mark Baldwin. He had some kind of communication breakdown with the folks he was supposed to be riding with, ended up on his own, and was headed over to climb Tibbs. While that sounded "fun", Mark is strong, and I was in uncertain shape at best, so we chatted a bit, but both got going our separate ways before our respective heart rates dropped too much.

There's an old chimney on CCC Camp.

I may have gotten a picture of it before, but that day there were a million bright purple flowers in front of it. Sadly, they barely show up in the photo. In real life, they were so striking that I'd stopped to look at them.

I ran into a group of I think 5 riders at Holly Creek Gap. Nobody I knew though. We said hellos, but they didn't follow me immediately.

When you're climbing FS68, you have to stop at Barnes Creek Falls, I mean come on.

As I was pulling back out onto the road, I heard some mechanical noises behind me. One of the guys I'd seen at Holly Creek Gap was trucking it up the road behind me. He caught me pretty quickly and we chatted all the way up to the overlook.

Pretty nice guy! He and his crew were over from Greenville. They ride Pisgah quite a bit, but had yet to hit up the Mulberry Gap area. I was going to tag along with their group, but after 4 or 5 minutes of nobody els showing up, I figured I ought to get going before I got too cooled off and headed up to the upper lot.

The trail conditions on Bear Creek and P1 were as perfect as I've ever seen them. Tacky but not damp. Perfect grip. Slightly overgrown just to let you know that you're really in the Forest. Ideal, to me at least.

I noticed what looked like new trail work on lower Bear Creek too. Some regrading, and some "divert the trail, not the water" tactics. I'm sure there are plenty of people who feel like Bear Creek is ruined forever now, but the work looked really good to me. I guess I should mention that I inspected while descending at full speed though, so take that with whatever salt seems appropriate. I'll be interested to see how it performs over the next few years.

Below the Poplar, but above P1, I ran into a pair of hikers coming up, with a happy-looking dog.

On P1 I ran into a day hiker prtty quickly after getting on the trail, and another couple of day hikers right at the top of the toughest climb on that section. We chatted for a minute. It's nice to talk to folks, but I'll admit that I was also happy to have a good excuse to rest for a bit. Just past the Boy Scout Bridge, I ran into another hiker. This time, a through-hiker though. He'd hiked the entire Pinhoti from the terminus in Alabama, was going to pick up the BMT at the end, take it over to Springer, and take the AT approach down to Amicalola. He'd been on the trail about 15 days already... I think or maybe some part of his hike was planned to be 15 days. I don't remember exactly. It was really cool talking to him though. It was also just great to see the Georgia Pinhoti getting a good amount foot traffic. It gets plenty of bikes, but it's a gorgeous trail. I really should hike it myself, someday.

Near the food plots at the end of P1 there were a million of those same purple flowers that I'd seen earlier.

Somehow, again, they really didn't show up that well in the photo.

One thing that does show up well in photos though... Everything is REALLY leafing out up there right now.

That gorgeous spring green is everywhere. Spring green and moving shadows on the trail. It's that time of year again.

I ran into another rider at the P2 lot, but I'm not sure if he was following me or going the other way. I passed another guy right at the start of the P2 singletrack too. As with Bear Creek and P1, the trail conditions on P2 were perfect and riding it was a blast. I felt fast, but looking at Strava later, I didn't set any PRs, so apparently I've been faster.

I didn't have the motivation to head up P3, but I did notice that the FS had built a new parking lot just up the hill toward the gap. I guess thats better than people parking up and down the road all the time.

Back at Mulberry Gap, I learned that they'd hired a new chef, who was originally from, of all places, Louisiana! I didn't meet her that day, but hopefully I'll get a chance to soon.

I'd heard some hammering earlier, and figured it was Andrew working on something. I eventually ran into him, and it turned out that he and Kate had finally been able to move into their new place down the road, and that he was renovating the cabin that they'd been staying in before. At the point that I ran into him, he was painting. Nothing worse than painting. Throughout the years of maintaining a rental property, I've volunteered to do all manner of more difficult stuff to avoid painting. Poor guy.

I talked to Chad for a bit too. He managed to sell his house but it took two unplanned trips to Louisiana to get it done.

Kate was in Arkansas riding gravel, so I didn't see her. I did get to talk to Tori and Jackie a bit, but they were working, so it was mostly guest/host-related stuff.

Overall though, it was super, super satisfying. While it's not the most strenuous loop, I was able to stay on the gas for most of it, and I felt really comfortable climbing everything. It also just felt great to be up in the Forest and even better to be warm the whole time.

More to come?