Soon
after discovering the mountain biking at North Carolina’s DuPont State Forest (DuPont Intro) Jean and I began
making a regular biking summer trip over to Asheville. Our friend Steven was
still living there, and we’d visit to ride DuPont one day, ride Bent Creek or
another Asheville area the other day, and then binge on Tour de France coverage
in between.
Near Corn Mills Shoals
It
was on these trips that Jean learned to ride single track while cruising along
some of the region’s finest trails like Reasonover Creek at DuPont or Boyd
Branch at Bent Creek.
Inside Bridal Veil Falls.
DuPont’s
trail system was much in flux in those days. Each year there was a new map, and
some trail names or numbers that had been added, eliminated, or changed.
The old Rambler near Poplar Hill.
I
tried to keep up a master map of what we had ridden, but even after 6 or 7
trips there were still a lot trails left to ride.
An old lean-to in the forest.
One
of our big break throughs was a July 07 trip from Fawn Lake where we discovered
the Reasonover Creek Trail south of Lake Julia.
The lodge near Lake Julia.
While
most of the trails and roads at DuPont were built before the area became a
state forest, Reasonover Creek had been built (or rebuilt) for biking with the
smooth flow and humane grades that make mountain bike riding so fine.
Reasonover, along with a rebuilt Airport Trail, proved ideal riding for Jean,
who developed a good feel for single track riding. On later visits we added
small loops around Buck Forest and Burnt Mountain to our trip.
Always good to keep an eye on the map.
For
our 2009 trip, we planned to try a long loop out of the Fawn Creek TH around a
loop with the Joanna and Turkey Knob Roads. This route would give us some new
trails in the southeast corner of the forest. To maximize the fun riding, we
started with a shorter loop out of the tailhead.
Riding down the Airstrip.
We
started by riding the Mine Mountain Trail, which was one of the new ones, then
riding the Airstrip (one of the rehabilitated trails) down to the side trail to
picturesque Bridal Veil Falls. In those days Steven had us geocaching, and we
were able to find two new caches near the falls. Then we headed over to Lake
Julia and rode the Reasonover Creek Trail clockwise back to Fawn Lake.
Reasonover with its flowy single track was probably our favorite trail in the
Forest. This loop was pure enjoyment and could be a great introductory ride to
the forest.
Bridal Veil Falls from the outside.
After
the shorter eastern loop, we rode a longer loop more to the north and east. We
took the east side of the Fawn Lake Loop to the Airstrip, but this time skipped
Bridal Veil Falls and rode past Lake Julia.
Steven underneath Bridal Veil Falls.
The
main road north of Julia was sometimes closed as the landowners and the state
worked out access, but this time we were able to ride it north to Joanna Road.
We’d ridden the west part of Joanna Road previously, but the east end would be
new to us. Joanna Road was rough and rocky, and the payoff wasn’t worth the
effort. We ended up getting off the bikes and pushing a lot on the eastern end
of the road.
Bike portaging.
At
the end of Joanna Road, we hit the local Pinnacle Mountain Road on the boundary
of the forest, and took it to the forest’s Turkey Knob Road. The boundary road was
fast maintained dirt. Turkey Knob was a smooth old contour road and fun riding.
Two thumbs down for the east end of Joanna Road.
Steven
and I did an extra clockwise loop on Poplar Hill, just to mark it off our map. But
Poplar Hill surprised us with some fast, smooth, and twisty downhill. After one
more stretch on Turkey Knob we repeated the super fun southern leg of
Reasonover Creek Trail back to Fawn Lake Trailhead to complete a 22.5 mile
loop.
Our 2009 route map.
This
ride would end up being the last of our visits (so far) to DuPont. Partly we did
less biking overall, but after Steven left Asheville we lost our riding
partner, host, and local guide. We also had begun our exploration of the Emory
Tract near Frozen Head and that adventure consumed much of our spare time. But
with the current (2023) rebirth of my interest in mountain biking, maybe I’ll
get to ride at DuPont again someday.
Jean and Steven at Bridal Veil Falls.
