Heartbreak.... the hard way.
Erinna and I joined a huge crew,10 total, this morning for a ride with a butt-crack of dawn rally-time. We started at *cough* 6:30 AM at the Old Fort Picnic Area. Our route: Up the pavement past the church, Up Heartbreak to Star Gap down to Jared Creek (Grassy Road of Death) Up the 9 mile climb that is Curtis Creek Rd, Up Down and Up again the five miles of Parkway to the goat trail up to Heartbreaker, then down down down down down down down Heartbreak Ridge back to the pavement and back to the Jeep (and 6 other vehicles). About 37 miles in about 7 hours with three pretty good mechanicals, a couple wrecks, a couple flats....
A few photos until I can get a better description down
Steven (errr...?) at the Star Gap/Grassy Road of Death intersection:
Curtis Creek at the bottom, where it looks all nice and innocent...
behind that bright smile I'm bonking pretty freakin bad. Thanks for thehelp getting me up the mountain, Erinna!
Clint, the brains behind Industry Nine wheels, at the top of Curtis Creek Rd. Lookin' good Clint!
Oh, and speaking of... Nice equipment is soooo nice. Here's a shot of my current front-end setup (I9, WB, XTR):
Aaaaahhhhhh! I need a new camera already! This would have been sweet if the flower was in focus. Or the rider, that would be cool too.... but come on camera! One or the other! Not neither!
Great (big) ride.
The weekend before this ride Erinna and I hiked up to Shining Rock from the Big East Fork parking lot on 276. It took almost 3 hours going up and just a little over 2 hours to get back down. We had nearly 30 pounds of gear on our backs for the hike up but after consuming all of our consumables the packs weighed significantly less on the way back down.
The view from here:
The storm that finally reached us around 11PM:
MMMMMMM....Dinner.
Floyd, bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning:
A clean camp is a good camp:
Erinna! say Hi! Day 2, hiking back down.
