The boxes have been unpacked and it is starting to hit home that Asheville is now home base. The past week has been quite the surreal experience. I have been coming to Asheville since 1993, over the past few years I have made the trip countless times so it is only natural that past week has felt like yet another extended vacation. It does not help that my house feels like the kind of bad ass vacation property that I usually rent for a few days then head back to my "real" place. All is going well and yes there have been few good rides to speak of...
1.9.08 Bent Creek. Wednesday rocked and blue skies and temps in the 55 degree range made for a great solo mission to Bent Creek. Hit all the spots I love the best then started exploring and found some new great trails with some great technical single track. For those of you that have yet to check this place out Bent Creek is an amazing trail to have right outside of town. I am happy to announce it take less than twenty minute from my front door to the trail head. Oh yea...
1.12.08 The Grand Loop. Got out last Saturday with Bruce and Chris for 4+ hour grand loop of DuPont State Forest and found my new favorite trail, Ridge line, which is 1.5 miles of super fast flowing single track with a jump or berm every 20-30 feet.
1.14.08 Wilderness Route. Dropped of the car at Subarus R Us for a little love and decided to find the most exciting route possible back to the house from Swannanoa NC about 20 miles from the house. The adventure would take Bruce and I towards Black Mountain then over to Warren Wilson College out to the base of a mountain where the road ends and forest service road begins only for the forest service road to end and lead to a hikeabike up 1,600 ft to the Blue Ridge Parkway and then bomb into town. We got a late start but we were still up for the challenge so we pushed on only to find the trail disappear after riding up the FSR and hiking for a mile or two until the trail disappeared. We starting hiking straight up towards the ridge through snow dusted leaves and rhododendron groves. After bushwhacking with the bikes for another 30 we still had no idea if we were close to the BRP. It was 4:05 and the sun was going to set in an hour so we made the call to respect the Mountain considering we had an apple and two goo packs and a half a water bottle and it was already below freezing on the Mountain. So we turned around and back tracked and made it back to town and proceeded to hit the Blue Ridge for a 5 mile climb to Town Mtn Road proceeded my a 4 mile decent home completely frozen,nothing a few beers wouldn't fix...Life is good and the Crow's Nest is now ready for visitors. Bring it on boys (and girls)...
Just so I don't piss everyone off with tales of nothing but good times. I have been doing a few things that may one day pay a bill. On a work note this week I jumped right into what I want to get started. There was a Green Home Open House Tour on Sunday with 20 or so homes / subdivisions all held open. I made lots of great contacts and talked with many like minded people who filled me in with what is happening in the "Green Scene" here in town. Went to a green building seminar yesterday and got a great overview of all aspects of what it means to go green and what our best options are in doing so for this area. Everyday I am learning something new, going somewhere new, and meeting a new person. It is exciting time for ole' Jut Rut and I am keeping my ears and eyes open at all times never knowing what is around the corner.
Jut
2 comments:
You suck. Can't wait to head out for a weekend. Glad things are on the upswing for you finally.
Don't go gettin' all racer boy pills fast on me now, mountain boy.
get up for the down stroke, I'll be down for a ride soon, but my new motto is quality over quantity, it looks like your are going for quality AND quality, so I'll have to slow you down.
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