Oh yes, now I remember. First MTB ride of the season. Not enough prep.'
Backing out the driveway ...
helmets, check
water, check
Mini GPS, check
camelbak, check
cell phone, nope
spare tube, nope
lights, nope
time to go back and get them ...?
This is just going to be a short ride, right? But we were only going to try to do the Blue. Could do that in my sleep, or so I thought I remembered.
The Blue has a great second/third entry point with one of the best pair of skill switchbacks in the entire Woods. The first switchback is a precipitous drop with a "ledge" in the middle just to keep it interesting. The best thing is to go as fast as possible to build momentum to mount the almost vertical seeming skate park-like half pipe on the other side. Except this is a lot taller than a half pipe and on the way op the other side there are six inch roots and wooden pallet slats embedded in the gravel. Yes, you read that right, slippery grip-busting gravel
That was the intention, until we took a wrong fork at the top of the first blue hill, or was it the second blue hill?
It was one of those memory landmarks you think you know well, and then a minute or two later "Oops, This doesn't look quite right."
Problem was it looked kind of right, so I thought maybe my memory was playing tricks. But I decided to press on and when the ravine failed to materialize, it was soon apparent we were really on the wrong trail. The Black. So I asked Gordo, if he wanted to do the Black and he said yes.
At a certain point in the trail it can become very clear that you are going the wrong way. There were no other riders, but it was obvious these dirt faces were meant to be "gone down" not "climbed up."
So, we pressed on to another familiar point and on some more. Pretty soon I relized we'd just done a loop trail that demanded some really hard exertion. And all we achieved was a good ride, a lot of exercise and ... we'd gotten back to the same "lost" point we started at, but with less daylight left.
No cell phone. No lights, less time. No idea which way to go, but a gut feeling the setting sun was in the right general direction. 2 ATVs sped past through yonder bushes. We stopped and deliberated at a strategic point. This way? that way?
I've found my way out of these woods in an emergency before so, I'll have to do it again.
Almost forget the GPS in my cell phone pouch. No handlebar mount left on this bike - probably broke in a crash. Time to replace. Anyway, the Garmin Edge 305 does not provide much of a map, and the Nav is hard to figure as it seems to tell the wrong direction. but it can lead you to waypoints...if you know what they are. It also provides a "worm trail" and this time it showed we had trailed out, then performed a loop, and were near the beginning of the loop again.
Let's go this way. After a while we came to a large gravel chute and decided to climb it to see what we could see from the top. Houses fences -- the South East corner. An ATV trail. We followed it a short while, then reconnected with the bike trail. We got off the ATV trail back onto a bike trail and connected with a familiar route in reverse that led us to our breakout point!
We decided to forego the rest of the Green trail and double back the way we came, just in case the sun beat us to it, by sinking behind the trees before we no longer see our path to the lot.
The setting sun turned out to be a good instinct. (SW is a good direction home there.)
Gordo sped to the van and claimed victory. Kudos to him he did a great job, never panicked once.
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