Massanutten Ride

From Massanutten Ride 8/14/09

In a whirlwind of a day, John, Matt and I (Joe) loaded up and moved out to Massanutten Mountain on Friday (8/12/09) to see what kind of riding we could do -- and still pick up the baby from daycare.

John and I left around 6:45 am and arranged to meet Matt at the Elizabeth Furnace Campground sometime around 8:30. Checking in along the way, all seemed to be on course. There was a slight snafu on the meeting location (no cell reception once 'inside' the Mountain). But no biggee. we were on the bikes by around 10 a.m.

The chosen course, E. Furnace to Muddy Gap to Bear Wallow, starts off innocently with about 5 miles of slight uphill on a nice road. Very pleasant. Then down into Muddy Gap and along a semi-technical but mostly level trail along - and through-- a lovely mountain stream. It was tempting to just stay there all day and stare at the water and trees. But I guess we'll save that for another trip.

Onward we went to the road leading to Signal Knob. After a few miles on the forest road, we were supposed to turn left onto the Bear Wallow trail. But we all found the summer mountain air, nice packed road and gentle incline to be a quite comfortable ride. So up we went along the road, with good conversation, and all of us missed the Bear Wallow turn off.

The road grade began to steepen, and soon we found ourselves dropped to granny gear. John asked "is this the hill," and thinking it wasn't, I said, "no, this is the hill that leads to the hill."

Before long, the road was just about straight up, John was off the bike, walking (no pedal clips and some derailleur problems, he was amazing to stay on as long as he did). Matt and I struggled our way up, both stopping at one point to rest and make sure our hearts stayed in our chests. The road was good, but the steep gradient was tough, and the rocks were loose, making the riding tough. Finally, we saw the tower that sits atop Signal Knob. We whooped and congratulated ourselves for getting to the top, despite that we were supposed to be on the other side of the hill, along the trail we missed.

No matter, we enjoyed the beautiful view for a while, set out a course to backtrack down the steep hill and find the Bear Wallow trail turn that we passed by, and resume our plan from there. So down the hill we went - fun and scary, steep as it is. We found and turned onto Bear Wallow, described as "generally rideable," or some nonsense. Well, on Massanuttten, those words mean different things to different people. And to us, "generally rideable" apparently means that after about a quarter mile we'll be carrying our bikes up steep, unrideable trail. Up we went, hiking for about 30 minutes or so till we came to semi-rideable terrain. Up a few switchbacks, tough rocks, but better than hiking the bike.

From Massanutten Ride 8/14/09

At the top we regrouped. The sign said "Elizabeth Furnace 4 miles." We looked forward to some nice downhill as a reward for the tough uphill. I started us down, coasting about 30 feet, rounded a slight bend, cursed and stopped the bike.

Ahead of me were boulder fields as far down the trail as I could see. Rocks like that are scary enough when going uphill, but downhill they always seem scarier and more dangerous. Not wanting to risk it, we all dismounted and walked our bikes through, coasting along any short stretch that was not life threatening.

Fortunately, this part of the downhill did not last long. Soon we were all back on the bikes and riding a fun - super fun! - trail down slopes, over rocks and roots, around bends. We stopped along the way to make sure we were all right, the started out again.

At one point, after about 10 minutes of good crazy riding, I came to a trail interchange and stopped to check the map and wait for the others. I checked the map, stared at the woods, took a picture of myself in front of my bike, and realized that the others should have caught up by now. I started back up the hill and found that John had had a mild wipe-out followed by a flat tire. Matt was behind him and the two were stopped fixing it. (That goodness Matt was responsible). They finished up quickly enough, and we continued without problem.

From the Bear Wallow trail, we turned on to the Sidewinder Trail. The name proved apt as we wound up and down slight hills, then around some sharp and challenging switchbacks.

The Sidewinder Trail connected the Bear Wallow to the original road we began on. Since that road starting out was nearly all up hill, we now had a great, fast downhill finish back to the cars.

Total time on the bike was about 4 hours 15 minutes. Excellent challenging ride (and sometimes hike) on the beautiful Mountain. We left Elizabeths Furnace round 2:40 p.m. Because we were worried about getting delayed in rush hour on the Beltway, Lorrin left work a little early to pick up Eddie. That took the stress out of the return trip.

But as it turned out, John and I arrived back in Germantown at about 4:30, in plenty of time to get the baby by 5 p.m., and thereby bringing our whirlwind to a successful conclusion.

Thanks to all involved for a great day. It's a great model for a day trip to the mountains!

Here are the rest of the pictures.