Mountain Biking

Well, the reason for our trip up north was to go to a log home tour. The company we are interested in has a tour every fall to show off some of the houses they have built. So next up was Crystal Mountain where the tour was being held this year.

We woke up Saturday morning to a beautiful fall day. Since the tour didn't start until the afternoon we had a whole morning to fill. Since the bikes were with us we decided to go for a little ride. Our plan was to ride around the resort and maybe some of the roads around that area. As we were riding along we saw this.





Crystal Mountain has a mountain bike path that goes around their resort complex. D's bike is ok for mountain biking but my tires are narrower which makes off road biking a little trickier. The sign said this was intermediate in difficulty so I figured why not, if it was too bad we could just turn around. The trail made a huge circle around the comlex and was around 5 or 6 miles long. So off we went.





As you can see the colors were beautiful. I have to say this trail wasn't too bad. It even connected up to another mountain bike trail that would have taken us down to the nearby river. We went a little way on it but with no map and no food we decided we should probably go back to original trail. Other than some sandy spots where my bike would skid somewhat I found it doable.





We had gone about two thirds of the way around when we came across this sign.





I think the sign says it all. The sign at the beginning of the trail had said moderate so we assumed that this warning didn't pertain to us. For some reason we thought it was referring to cross country skiers. It didn't take long to figure out that it did mean mountain bikers. It was much sandier and had short, but steep, hills. In fact, we ended up pushing our bikes up the hills





and walking them down the hills.





We were doing more walking than riding at this point. After a short while we realized the bike trail was running parallel to the highway. Now D is ready to bag the whole idea and just get on the highway for the rest of the ride. But there was no way I was going to quit even if it meant walking the rest of the way. My stubborness paid off because when we came (walked) over the last hill we were rewarded with this view. Beautiful.





I am so glad we took the time that morning to ride our bikes.





We had a great time and saw some beautiful houses in the afternoon. I can't wait to go back again.