We had been told by several people that the brilliant fall colors were peaking along the Highland Scenic Highway. Being that it was also the last weekend for downhill mountain biking at Snowshoe Mountain, we had a very serious decision to make. Do we skip one of the last fall Gauley River dam releases of the season, or do we call it quits for the year on the lift accessed mountain biking. We concluded that the Gauley would be waiting next weekend and we'd already had good times kayaking along with a Songer Whitewater rafting trip on the Upper G on Saturday. We got up early on Sunday morning and began the two hour pilgrimage from the New River Gorge area up to Pocahontas county.
My travel companions were Adam Stephens from Marathon Bike Shop in Fayetteville, and his buddy Acie from Beckley. We hadn't been to Snowshoe for sometime so there was a sense of excitement in the car ride up. As we headed up into the 4000 foot elevations of Rt. 150 outside of Richwood, the tree canopy revealed a vivid blend of red, orange, yellow, green, crimson, and all colors in between.
The recent dry weather meant that the trails were in great shape. We did laps on a couple of the new trails, Missing Link and the Red Bull Trail. We weren't dissapointed. Missing Link featured an endless session of table tops and tight switchbacks, reminiscent of a BMX track built into the side of a West Virginia mountain. Red Bull featured several sick wall rides, some as long as 40 feet long and twenty feet tall. We did our best to ride them high and long, attempting to jump off the side of the wall at it's conclusion.
The day was epic to say the least. Yeah, we didn't get off the mountain without breaking something on two of our three bikes. But that just goes with the territory of riding hard in the West Virginia Mank. We left the mountain with a truly breathtaking sunset dipping below the mountains to the west. I couldn't have picked a better way to do some leaf peepin' while firing up some big drops!
Check in next week with a recap of Bridge Day and the last official fall release day on the Gauley River.
