Birthday Ride!
Waaaaaaaay back on June 14th Erinna, Wode, Mike R, and I did Pilot Rock to Laurel Mountain, starting at Yellow Gap. Everyone was feeling good during the warm-up and we hammered to the bottom of Pilot. The pace was tough but no-one was complaining so we just got that section of gravel road over with as quick as we could. We took a little breather and started up up up Pilot. I was realling feeling 'On'. I had a trick up my sleeve (well, in my camelback) and that may have been helping me along. I cleaned everything up to the first switchback and came soooo close to even making it beyond. Two more switchbacks and we were at the humvee section. Three more and we were at the overlook:
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It was another beautiful late spring day in the mountains of North Carolina, that's for sure. We weren't the only ones on the trail this day. Soon after the overlook the trail gets pretty steep and there is even some slickrock switchbacks. Like I said before, I was really feeling good during the climb and I looked up and saw a teenager sitting down, right in the middle of the trail, in the middle of the next switchback. As I approached he did not get up. Before I got there I noticed the scene was a little weird. There was aslightly overweight lady in a denim dress and sandles, A slightly underweight lady, and a rather overweight man with count them.... 5 autistic teens. The lady in the denim dress was obviously the leader of the group and she was a bit frantic. They had started at the parkway, took mountains to sea to Laurel, took the Pilot connector, and rather than going up Pilot and back to the Mountains to sea, they went DOWN Pilot. Ooops! Wrong Turn! We calmed them down a bit, shared our water, power juice, and food. We offered to walk with them and gave them easy directions out. Denim dress lady repeated the directions to me and had regained her composure before we left them. That was one of the craziest situations ever.
Please people, If you're headed off for a hike with 5 autistic kids please please please bring some water and a little food and a map. Please do this even if youre headed off with 5 normal kids, 5 adults, or even 5 dogs! You never know when a wrong turn will be made and you'll be hiking down into the deepest depths of Pisgah!
Anyway, that was something else. We continued up Pilot and we felt like we had done everything we could short of walking them out, which they declined our offer of. Erinna fell behind just a little and as I let Wode pass and catch up to Rischitelli, I realized it was my chance to have a small private moment with Erinna. She rode up and I asked if she thought we had a few moments to ourselves. She didn't know what to think, I gave her a kiss, took off my camelback, and pulled the trick out of my bag, the fire under my ass all day, I gave Erinna her engagement ring. It was beautiful. I was nearly in tears, she was slackjawed, and we kissed like we hadn't seen each other in years. It was a beautiful moment. We had been engaged for a couple of weeks already but she didn't have a ring until then. We kept quiet about it though and met up with the guys at the top. Here's a photo of my beautiful fiance at the top of the hill:
Next was the Pilot connector to Laurel and then the $2000 descent. Mike was in the lead and we flew down the hill. I was right on his tail, tailgating even, until he did this one move that made him pull away like I was nearly standing still. I wan't willing to toss myself and bike quite like that and he gained 50 feet on me in a matter of seconds. We hauled ass down to Sassafrass Gap and waited for the others. Here's mike looking pretty pumped about that downhill as we wait:
Laurel Mountain continues for about 6 miles of downhill back to the car. We were all feeling good still and tried some pretty tricky moves. I cleaned the upper nasty, the crackrock, and the tomohawk rock section. Here's Erinna climbing through the rock overhang:
And Mike and Wode:
The rest of the ride went by pretty fast. We finished up right at 3 hours which is a respectable time. One last photo from the ride, Erinna showing off her new ring:
