Housework, Trailwork, Riding, Blah Blah Blah

Another action-packed weekend. Saturday morning was another Bracken Mtn workday. We're getting closer and closer to the Forest property. Hopefully we'll get a good turnout for the next workday or two and finish up with the corridor clearing. After that, it was time to paint the bathroom after taking forever to strip the wallpaper and prep the walls. I HATE wallpaper. Especially the wallpaper in this house. Only three more rooms to strip and paint. Woohooo!!

Today was a perfect day for a ride (as was yesterday, oh well), so I headed to the Forest. I had no agenda really, so I just started making my way up Clawhammer. Up at the gap I took a moment to notice how the trees have all sprouted leaves in the past few days.



I still had no idea what route I wanted to take, so I headed down Buckhorn Gap, and took a left on S. Mills. I really like this section of S. Mills. It has a fun, rocky downhill, and some technical, rocky riding along the river. Once I got to the parking lot, I decided that I would hit a couple of seasonal trails before they're closed, so I headed to Pink Beds.



Today is Easter, so why wouldn't I find this along the trail?



I left it for someone who might actually appreciate it, and continued my leisurely spin along Pink Beds loop. I made it to the parking lot and it was mayhem. The lot was full, and there were obese people everywhere. It was like I was in Gatlinburg, except there were no t-shirt or fudge shops. I sat in the shade and had a GU before heading down 276 to 477.



Obviously, once on 477 I headed up for a run down Bennett. It was lovely.





MRI tomorrow morning. Can't wait to have that giant dye-injection needle shoved under my knee cap. Fun stuff.

Beat

What a great weekend! Saturday, I made it to another volunteer day at the Bracken Mountain Trail. We're getting close to having the entire corridor cleared for Long Cane Trails to do their thing. We just need to finish the connector trail into the Forest, and touch up a few places on the main loop. Long Cane has already starting cutting the trail in the area that is cleared, and from the short section I was able to see, it's going to be a ton of fun.

Sunday found me in the Forest on my bike. I decided to do the PMBAR start for some damn reason, and from the Black Mtn trailhead I headed up Thrift, Black, Maxwell, Clawhammer, Black, Avery, Buckhorn, Clawhammer, Maxwell, Black. Twas a fun ride, and I felt decent. I took some photos, but there was something on my lens (it's actually still there), and that's kind of annoying, but anyway...



Black is such a buff trail.




Today, I took the day off to go to the doctor (more on that in a minute), and to take some Ohioans on a hike up to Slate Rock. We met a little after noon, and rally car'ed it down 1206 to the trailhead. The Suby is much more fun on gravel roads than the Grand was. The hike up wore them out a bit, but they made it and decided it was worth it when we popped out on the rock.



My doctor's visit this morning was at an orthopedic office. Seven years ago I messed my knee up playing soccer. I was told it would heal and I'd be fine, because my ACL wasn't totally torn, just partially. Well that was apparently BS. Basically my ACL is "stretched," which means it's not doing its job, so my knee is unstable and shifts sometimes when I'm walking, hiking, riding, running, standing, etc. It sucks and I'm pretty tired of it. I'm planning on getting another MRI done soon, and possibly having surgery to fix it. Unfortunately, that would mean up to a year of recovery, and a pretty long hiatus from riding and hiking. That really sucks, but I'd rather have a healthy knee so I can be as active as I want. I guess we'll see after the MRI.