Unprepared epic

 Sunday was the Dragon's Tail race which is a grueling 36 mile race with 6500ft of climbing.  Some of my teammates were doing it but for some reason I just didn't feel like racing it. So some friends headed and I up to the mountains to piece together a bunch of fire roads and trails.  We had all done sections of these trails but never had we pieced them all together. We way underestimated just how hard doing this would be and none of us had enough food or water. In hindsight it would have been easier to do the race, at least then we would have aid stations.

To get us started we headed up a Goff mountain road, a nice fireroad that take you from the valley on up. We had originally planned to turn up the Glenn Wood Horse Trail but Davy thought we should go on up to the parkway and then drop down the horse trail just to add some more climbing.  So up we went all the way to Petities gap where we bombed down a fun section of single track and then traversed across the mountain.

Davy hitting a hard creek crossing on the horse trail.

After the single track we hit Hunting Creek Road and continued on up the mountain. At the top it stops being a gravel road and becomes a nice wide grassy double track.  Way more climbing on the grassy section then I remember but I guess that's because I usually ride it in the other direction.

Chad at the end of the grassy double track

Now we made it back to the parkway at sunset fields. At this point we were at mile 20 and had climbed 4568 ft of elevation. We started to realize that we were going to be low on water and food with one person already being completely out. It would have been a good time to turn back instead of going over the other side of the mountain but, not wanting to cut the ride short, we went on. The next section down Apple Orchard Falls to Cornelius Creek is a super fun and rocky descent going for almost 5 miles. Once at the bottom we head back up the lower section of Apple Orchard which is slightly uphill but with lots of technical rocks to navigate. After about a mile of that we crossed back over to a fireroad to make the final big climb of the day. At this point water was low and the ride had started to wear on some people.

Kat flying through the creek

Some team work had to be used on this crossing

Once back to Sunset fields the call was made that the ride was taking longer then expected, and we needed to find the quickest safest way back to the cars. Everyone was out of water or close to empty by this point. We had planned to go find some single track none of us had done and then climb back to terrapin mountain trail and return that way. Instead we decided to make the 400ft of climbing up the blue ridge parkway to thunder ridge and then descended back to hunting creek road. Even that meant we had to climb back up a gravel road to get to the cars, which proved to be too much for Chad, who was having cramps from lack of food.  He waited at the intersection for us to get the cars and pick him up on the way.  Overall, it was a great ride with 44miles and 7600ft of climbing and I actually felt fairly fresh and ready to keep riding at the end. Whatever I'm doing training wise seems to be working well for me, so let's hope I can turn it into some good race results. Others didn't fair to well with Davy passing out and freaking me out on the drive home from dehydration. I'll be back to hopefully do this ride again but with more supplies next time!!


Strava Over the mountain and through the woods and back without enough food/water

 


o