.:: DonnieNix.net ::.

Me and Creamsicle (I named my bike Creamsicle because it’s the same shade of orange…yeah, I know) drove up to Waleska to check out the newest trails in Cherokee County. I wasn’t expecting much but was still disappointed. I guess I should have taken it as a bad omen when I pulled up to the trailhead, and there were NO cars at all. On a Sunday where there is not a cloud in the sky and 75 degrees, you’d think every trail would be covered with humans. I drove by Blankets Creek before coming up here and there was no parking at all. That’s why I decided to check out these trails. I figured that I’d be bouncing off of people all around BC, so why not go ahead and take the opportunity to try the new trail.

When I first got there, I thought, cool, I’ll be the only one out there, that’ll be neat. Ha. Boy, did I read the signs wrong.

First of all you start off on a steep as hell gravel road that takes you to some really crappy jeep road. This is the trail. Ninety percent jeep road. There’s a few trails running off the jeep road that wind around and connect back up with it. These are labeled as advanced trails. I would have to say that whoever designed and laid out these trails were not mountain bikers. None of the trails have any flow whatsoever and some of the zig-zags are so tight, you can’t maneuver a bike through them without hooking a tree. One section had a 3 ft deep dip right after a blind curve, that followed two consective ultra-tight turns, so by the time you hit the dip, your speed was killed so much that you could not roll it.

One other section had a steep uphill, rolling into a 90 degree switchback with a log laid across the apex of the turn. I tried this twice and both times got hung on the log because the steep climb up to it and then the sharp turn wouldn’t allow me to have any speed to pop over the log. It was totally out of place.

I feel bad about trashing the trails around here, because I know the people who worked them tried, but man did they miss out. It’s a pretty big expanse of forest that they had to work with, and instead of winding the trail through the woods and making the most of the space, a’la Big Creek, Chicopee, and Blankets, they made all the little connector trails a “shortest line between point A and point B” type of design. Instead of making 6 nice switchbacks going down that hill, they made one steep, narrow, brake-burning, slide down the hill.

They could have jammed 6 or 7 miles of trails in there, instead, it’s only about 3 miles of tedious up and down. For a mountain bike trail, it makes a great running trail.

One of the cool things about mountain biking is getting out where you are by yourself and seeing things you can’t see while cruising past in a car at 60mph.

Yesterday, out at  Blankets Creek, I was on the backside of the trail near the lake and heard a bunch of stomping in the leaves on both sides of me. I figured it was deer because they are all over the place out there of late. I took a quick glance around and noticed a rather large doe standing right beside the trail about 30 feet ahead.

I slowed down to a crawl and coasted up to the deer and stopped right in front of her, about 2 feet away. She didn’t move, just stared at me.

I stood as still as I could, so that she wouldn’t bolt, and we looked at each other without moving for about 3 minutes.

She was a pretty animal and I didn’t want to spook her, but it was inevitible. I moved a little, just shifting my weight, and she bolted down the hill.

I continued on down the trail, a little lighter in spirit.