Every Spring and Fall, Frank and I try to get together and do something stupid. I mean epic. The Fall epic is generally planned far in advance, and we train for it. Frank usually picks the Fall epic. I refer you to our posts about the Medoc Trail marathon, Crooked Road 24 Hour Ultra and the Triple Lakes Trail marathon.
The Spring epic is more of a seat-of-the-pants, spur-of-the-moment, free association, nine-minute-beat-poem, bad analogy, make-crap-up kind of adventure. Yes I typically pick and am in charge of the Spring epic. Let me assure you that the poor outcomes associated with them is mere coincidence. Often we resort to camping, hiking and/or just sitting around a campfire solving many of the world’s problems. You’re welcome.
This year I had a pretty good idea: go ride the mountain bike trails near Wilkesboro, NC (#wilkesbermo). I was particularly interested in the Overmountain Victory Trail. Unfortunately we picked the weekend of April 26th. After I made a couple e-mail inquiries and sent out a couple tweets, I found out that our timing was as usual was less than spot on. The tweet from Kerr Scott Trails (@kerrscotttrails) cut straight to the chase.
“@swimbikestumble accommodations will be tough. It’s @MerleFest weekend in #wilkesbermo Come ride, hear some great tunes and sleep in ur car”
After a brief survey of possibilities we came up with a pretty good plan B. Meet in Morganton, NC, and ride the trails in South Mountains State Park. The good news was 17 miles of trails to ride. The bad news was the 5K climb necessary to access the 17 miles of trails.
It was a good trip. We hiked up to High Shoals Falls. If you haven’t seen this waterfall, it’s worth the trip just to see it provided you’re fairly fit. We made it up the 5K climb of HQ Trail by a combination of riding and stopping, and riding and pushing. Once on top we explored the trails for a mile or two in each direction. We did not have the time or energy to do the entire 17-mile loop. The trip was fun. The scenery and people were wonderful. We could have done worse and in fact, we have. Stumble on.
