Dalton

Back in early October, I made my way up to Dalton to hit a couple of trails up there that I'd never ridden. Specifically, the "new" stuff at Rocky Face Ridge Park (AKA Buzzards Roost), and Raisin Woods.

Both turned out to be pretty great.

As I drove in to Rocky Face, I kept seeing the mountain looming above me around every turn, and it looked pretty daunting. From the parking lot, though, it wasn't so bad.

You have to ride across this pretty big field before you start climbing in earnest, and the trail kind of winds around back and forth. At some point, you pass a cannon.

Eventually you end up in the woods, though, and the trail is actually pretty nice.

I passed a guy at some point, but he kind-of kept up with me, and I ended up making it a bit of a mission to stay ahead of him for a while. Eventually I didn't see him any more, and it made me smile a little.

In the direction I was going (clockwise), there were a lot of overlooks.

Those are the Cohuttas over there, Mill Creek and whatnot. It made me wonder if I could see Rocky Face Ridge from the Mill Creek overlook. Heh, overlooks overlooking other overlooks.

At the top, there was an overlook to the west...

...which also gave a decent view to the south.

You can't really make it out in the photo, but I-75 is down there.

I said "top" earlier, but that wasn't really the top. There was a trail leading up to the summit itself, but it was pretty steep, and with the dry weather we'd been having, there were some spots that I just couldn't get traction, so I had to walk a little of it.

Ok, this is the actual top.

Looked like a popular place. Imagine dragging that table up there!

There apparently, was once a fire tower or radio tower, or something up there too.

The view to the south from the very top was even better than from that earlier overlook.

If there's one thing I really remembered well about that trail, it was how many long-distance views it afforded. Those are pretty rare in Georgia.

It was somewhat rocky on the climb up, but the trail on the west side of the face was infinitely rockier.

That photo really doesn't do it justice.

Still, it was really fast and fun. Not so rocky that you couldn't keep speed through it or anything.

I passed some guys on enduro bikes about halfway down, then ran into a big group of like 15 riders stopped at a little building, which I guess is a bathroom. At some point, I started climbing again, and it was pretty much one long climb over the north shoulder and back to the approach trail.

None of it was horrible though. I could see going up there and putting in a few laps. I only put in one though, as I wanted to get over to Raisin Woods and explore, and looking at the map, that could take a while.

When I got back to the lot, I thew my bike on the back, didn't even change, and drove over to Raisin Woods. When I pulled up, there were 2 other guys there, about to go ride, and I talked to them a bit. One guy was named Josue (Ho-sway) and the other was Mike. They both knew the trails really well, and offered to show me around. Sounded good to me!

We hit just about every trail in the system, but we were moving so fast, and stopped so infrequently, that I didn't get a lot of photos.

I did get a couple though, while we waited for Mike, who it appeared, had taken a wrong turn somewhere.

There are maps all over the place out there.

Though they're all kind-of grody, and a few are bent over.

This is Josue.

The whole system is pretty great. It's like Blankets, if Blankets didn't get thousands of riders per day. It's worn in, but not worn out. Every root isn't exposed yet. There are some nice, mellow jumps in a few places, but mainly it's just fast, flowing singletrack. Like 8 or 9 miles of it. I'm not sure I'd go back up just to ride it, but I'd definitely ride it again if I was in the area. The only thing I didn't like had nothing to do with the trail... We were riding at the perfect time of day for the sun to be right in your eyes if you were aiming the right direction. It would flicker through the trees, and just generally blind you sometimes. I ended up shouldering into a tree at one point, as a result, but fortunately didn't get hurt.

They ride a lot up the Chattanooga area, and were telling me about a bunch of great trails up there. I really should just drive up there, stay over the weekend, and hit a bunch of trails. I've pretty much only ridden Raccoon Mountain.

I had a very satisfying day. Great trails. And, it turned out that they're actually close enough to combine into a single ride, so maybe I'll go up and do that some time.