A Scouting Expedition

I went for another bike ride after work today, but for a specific purpose. I went out on Duncan Hollow Road again, past both the places I turned before, and went down Alfred Smith Road. This leads out to a trail junction along the Grand Gap Loop, a hiking trail with a lot of overlooks of the river gorge. The most popular of those is Angel Falls Overlook, which can also be reached by hiking along the river and then climbing all the way up to the top... but I know I would not be up for that.

I really want to see that overlook, so I thought I might hike there from the end of Al Smith Road and back. (The entire Grand Gap Loop is almost seven miles, which is too far for me. This would be a little less than two miles each way, I think.)

The problem would be the road. Earlier this summer, my boss, Bill, had me drive a park SUV out on all the back roads in this part of the park, so I could describe them to people if they were thinking of going there. Alfred Smith Road was one of the roughest ones - it had been raining all week, there were several very deep ruts and I had to line the car up very carefully in order to get across them. That was several months ago, and I wanted to go scout out that road and see what it looks like now and determine whether I would be able to get all the way to the end in my Malibu!

The first section of the ride is familiar by now - except that they apparently just put down some new gravel on the road. Since there's not much traffic it hasn't really been packed down yet, so it was a little slower to ride on that section. The new gravel petered out by the time I got to the part of the road I hadn't ridden on before.

The ride in on Al Smith Road was easy, not really rutted at all. In fact it was too easy - I was coasting all the way in! I kept braking, because I didn't want to come upon a rough spot too fast. I was starting to dread riding back out, since it would be a long way uphill, but at this point I wanted to see it through. I made it out to the parking area and trailhead at the end of the road, and there was only one deeper trench, which still looked passable. I stopped at the end, got off and stretched for a minute, and then headed back.

Apparently a lot of that road is fairly level, because it was actually not too bad going back out! There were only a few uphill spots, and only one that was difficult. I had just gotten up enough momentum that I was coasting on the level stretches as much as the downhill sections, so I thought it was all downhill!

In fact, the hardest part of the ride was the last section, on the loose gravel! This was a bit longer than the other rides I've done, and it was a good workout. Best of all, I now know that I will be able to drive out there and take that hike to Angel Falls Overlook!