None More Black Mountain

The re-routing of the infamous Black Mountain Trail in the Pisgah National Forest gives me a headache.

Let me rephrase that.  People badmouthing the re-route of the Black Mountain Trail are giving me a headache.

I'll elaborate.

I tried as hard as my internet fingers could to find out when the trail was originally built.  I can only tell you that it was constructed decades before bikes were capable of being ridden down it.  Throwing my guesstimate at it, I'd say this was the bike you woulda had to pilot down the mountain back then:

Assuming it was brand new when you started, this is what it would look like after the first descent.

To put it bluntly, the trail was not really built for bikes.  At all.  No one woulda thunk that bikes would look like this in the future:

Artist rendering of my worst nightmare

Anyhoo, a large portion of the trail was built pretty much slap down the ridge line.  It made for quite the thrill ride.  I've been riding down Black Mountain for the better part of twenty five years.  I'm so enamored with this trail, that after a friend had taken his own life back in 2016, I had this to say:

"I've been a dopey person at times, not really sure about what I'm doing and why.  Fatalism.  Not always terribly interested in living, but honestly... you have to look forward to what might happen next.  There's always going to be another ride down Black Mountain, a hug from a family member (or an uncomfortable hug from a friend), another interaction that restores your faith in mankind... seriously, the positive things that are coming your way have to be something to stick around for."

Speaking of which, I got to hug my mother for the first time in over a year yesterday, so there's that.

Love, love, love this trail... but as a fifty (almost) two year old human, I've had to get used to change.  I liked $.25 hamburgers at McDonald's, having a full head of hair, body parts that don't always hurt, heavy metal music being played on the radio...

Change, for better or worse, is sometimes inevitable.  I can remember coming down Black Mountain with V-brakes and innertubed 26" wheels over two decades ago.  Now, the trail has turned into something it never was intended to be.

Pretty much a ditch... that carries sediment down the mountain and into streams and rivers and such, generally fucking things up for species that were here before bicycles, Five Ten shoes, and flat brim hats.

Who's to blame?

I guess I'm slightly tired of the "locals only" attitude when it comes to Black Mountain.  I get it.  People are partially to blame here, a large portion that don't live in the 828.

"All these out of towners blasting it when it's wet, creating ride-arounds, and generally ruining things for those of us who grew up here (even if I started growing up there in my thirties)."

The local economy is booming with tourism dollars.  Although I grew up in a mobile home, the nearest populated area was a "lake town."  I know what it's like to hate tourists.  People who had vacation mobile homes that made ours look like a shed.  Hate.  Clogging up the roads and the drive-thru line at Dairy Queen.   Hate.  It's just a thing you do.  I feel your pain.

Now I'm old, and I get it.  Live in a desirable area, be prepared for visitors.

Even if we coulda kept "all the gawdam tourists" off of Black Mountain, Mother Nature would still be doing her thing.  Inevitably, it was gonna be a ditch.  You know how many "out of towners" know about Schoolhouse Ridge in the Grandfather District of Pisgah... or how many "locals" actually ride it?  Not so many, but Mother Nature do what she do.

Yes, that's a trail... built before bikes went on trails...that probably sees 1/1000th the amount of traffic Black Mountain does.  Tell me "apples and oranges" and I'll say "tomato potato."

BTW:  It's true.  Locals never ride Pisgah when it's wet.

So it's an unsustainable trail that's not getting any less popular that sells beers and burgers and bikes and flat brim hats and fills Airbnbs and hotels and pumps gas and pays coaches and bike mechanics and guides... whatever else people spend their money on while visiting Pisgah.  What are we gonna do?

Build a new SUSTAINABLE trail.  More SUSTAINABLE trail than what we had to begin with... with a more attention on how to use the terrain more wisely.

BUT IT WON'T BE WHAT IT WAS BEFORE!?!

I guess bitch all you want, but with the option of closing down an unsustainable trail altogether or getting new (more) trail, I'll take the latter.

I'll admit, I'm a dated mountain biker.  I prefer the late '90s/early '00s rips that go straight down the mountain.  Zero talent required, just hold on and let your nuts (or ovaries) hang out in the breeze.  Trace Ridge (in its current state) is my absolute current favorite in the PNF.

If you don't hear Mötley Crüe's "Ten Seconds to Love" playing in your head as you hit mach chicken going down Upper Trace, you're ded to me.  The only problem with Trace is (actually was) that the lower portion of it was a ditch that (you guessed it) was dumping sediment into the North Fork Mills River.  So a reroute was done (by the same folks who are doing the work on Black Mountain), and to be honest, I hated it the first time I rode it.

If there's one thing I've (s-l-o-w-l-y) learned in thirty something years of mountain biking, don't judge a newly built trail.  Honestly, we bumped into Shrimper t (the person who ruined Trace Ridge *winky emoji) that day, and he led us to the new section.  It was soft.  It had no flow.  No tech.  We still dropped over 200 feet to the river, but it felt like a climb.  I missed the old ditch run down to the bottom.

But now, years later, it's a blast.  The rocks are popping their fuck faces outta the ground and the trail surface is hard packed and it's a hoot.  And it's longer.

The same can be said for the "new" Spencer Branch.  Hopefully in a few years, the same can be said about the longer and sustainable reroute on Cantrell Creek (which used to pretty much ride down the creek towards the bottom of it).

And no matter what, the work will continue.  There are more plans to reroute, fix, and reclaim old trail.  The last period of extensive trail work in Pisgah that I can remember was after Hurricane Whatever-It-Was a bunch of years ago when a portion of the work was done by the dubious "lowest bidder," and we got the quality that was expected.  When I look at the "recent" work that's been done on Spencer, Bennett, Buckwheat, Lower Black, Avery... I feel like we're in good hands, and things will only get better.

The traffic getting outta Pisgah on 276 on a sunny Saturday afternoon tho?  Until they build the roundabout at 280, mebbe they'll let food trucks set up on the side of the road so nobody starves to death waiting at the traffic light?

Wanna halp?  Pisgah Area SORBA is raffling off this bike:

So, if you're a shitty out-of-towner like me who likes to head to Pisgah when it's raining and loves to drag your rear brake all the way down the mountain (I kid), why not throw $20 (or more) at this bike and fixing everything we fucked up?

This has been a pubic service announcement.