This weekend Jen and I headed off with the new tent and bikes to Montgomery Bell State Park. The goal was to see how well the new tent would cope with both of us in it and to take in some trails we had been told were really good for biking.
I was really surprised when it comes to the new tent Jen picked up. It looks small, it is small but it did fit both of us in it. The fact that we both slept about 8 hours ok wise is a testament to either us being tired or it being comfortable *LOL*. The major issue we think was using my CPAP in the tent as it created condensation in the tent and everything started getting damp. Also by the time 6am hit I was getting sore and could not stay in the tent any longer. I crawled out got dressed and dozed in the jeep till the sun came up and I could start a fire.
The funnest part of this weekend does have to go to the mountain biking. We had a blast (the whole weekend, camping, cooking out and biking was brilliant - Monty Bell campground is perfectly situated). On the Saturday after we set up we did the red route of the trails (see image below).
Image copied from Montgomery Bell trail pdf. All copyright the State of TN
Sunday we decided to do a longer route before heading home. Knowing that there was a downed tree towards the end of the trails we decided to do a route in reverse. We headed off down the blue route (intermediate trail) and rode that till we hit "4 Points Junction" on the map. From there we rode a little of the red trail till it hit marker 6 of the white trail and headed down that. This consisted of what is classed as the white pine trail and the storm track and of the 3 trails we had been on I think this was the coolest. We were unsure how long the rabbit run (white) was towards the end so we omitted it and returned back to the trail head and civilization. Totals for the weekend are a guess, but I think it is about 2 miles on Saturday and about 8 or 9 on the Sunday.
One good point is that we met a guy as we were packing the bikes up who we gave a copy of the map to and who told us about another trail near Columbia so we may be heading there to try it. Its a loop of 8 miles and starts at easy and builds up.
I think the coolest part was actually running into someone on the trails that we know. Know in a marginal sense, he was part of the rescue team at Dirt, Guts, and Donuts. As we were struggling up a hill at MBP he was barreling down it, just as he passed I recognized him and a split second later he recognized Steve. That was pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteOther highlights: jumping my first log and swooping down into a steep dip. Two things I probably would not have done had I not seen two different chicks do mere seconds before. My train of thought was the funniest thing, "If that fat/old (respectively) lady can do that, so can I!" hehe
But yeah, it was a great weekend. I can't wait to go back and ride more of the trails!
*LOL* and then I look and say to myself if Jen can do it I can do it also.... then as I am heading down into that drop I think to myslef WTH am I doing *LOL*
ReplyDeleteAt least you earned one of your lost man points back for chickening out on the log jump. Just sayin. :D
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