Max Patch to Sterling is a serious route through some of the
finest mountain biking terrain in the region. The route features two 2,000’ climbs
and miles of remote, little traveled, and often unmarked trails. This particular
ride ended up as the capstone of my mountain bike adventure riding, I haven’t
been able to put together a ride anywhere near as ambitious or committing since.
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| Our Route from Max Patch to Mt Sterling |
Just putting the ride together took significant planning.
Our first introduction to the area was the opening of a new hiking trail in the
Martha Sundquist State Forest. The MSSF is the former “Gulf Tract” a 2000-acre parcel
of Champion Paper Company land that was acquired by the state of Tennessee in
2001. In early 2010 my friend Ed and I both saw an article about a new two mile
Tennessee Gulf hiking trail in the forest, and thought that it would make a fun
trip to a new area. Much of the challenge of hiking in the forest was in getting
to the trailhead. We found no signs beyond the interstate and closer to the
forest, the access road gradually deteriorates, turns to gravel, passes through
what looks like someone’s front yard, and then makes a few shallow creek
crossings, at least one of which was tough for a low clearance sedan. We passed
a couple campsites before reaching a signed road junction near the lower
trailhead, about 2.5 miles from the Bull Gap turn.
When we hiked the trail in July 2010, we made a loop back to
our cars with two gravel Cherokee National Forest roads. The hiking trail was
worth the effort. It didn’t look like it got much use and had a soft springy
footbed. Much of the it follows an older trail/logging road still shown on the
topo maps, but the area has likely been undisturbed since at least the 1960s.
The creek crossings were elegantly bridged and the trail well marked and easy to
follow. Judging by their prolific scat, the black bears really love the area.
The wildflower potential looked great also. We saw foliage for both trillium
and lady’s slipper. The CNF roads were well maintained, basically empty, and
looked like they’d be huge fun to ride on a mountain bike.
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| Creek ford in MSSF. |
That August Mark, Steven, and I put together an exciting 24
mile loop that combines the roads on the perimeter of the MSSF with the Cherokee
National Forest roads that connected to the trailhead below Max Patch, a
beautiful open bald located along the Appalachian Trail north of Interstate 40.
The roads were old enough that we stayed cool under the tree canopy, and remote
enough that we didn’t see a single car except at the parking area near Max
Patch. The grades are gentle enough that even the 1,800-foot climb to Max Patch
went by without too much pain.
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| Mark and Steven on the summit of Max Patch |
For exploring the west side of I-40 we used the information
on Tom Dunigan’s “East Tennessee Mountain Biking” website. I’d been using Tom’s
maps to explore in the Cumberland Mountains, and although the maps were fairly
old, I generally found the information to still be accurate. Using the Dunigan
maps and the official Pisgah National Forest Maps it looked there was potential
for several loop rides. It was hard to find a time when our whole group could
ride together and eventually Mark went out on his own to ride some of the
trails in summer of 2011. In October, I then got out solo for a 32 mile loop
that took me from the Pigeon River to Mt Sterling Gap and then back via Double Gap.
The ride was everything I’d hoped it could be. The roads
were in great shape, all well compacted gravel. The climbing was relentless,
but never too steep for riding, I was feeling good and never had to get off the
bike to push. The fall colors were just reaching their peak at the higher
elevations, but I still only saw three vehicles all day on the PNF roads, there
were a few more cars on the Sterling Road. Near Sterling Gap, the road was a
perfect tunnel of golden leaves, some still on the trees, but most forming a
thin carpet on the roadbed. Mark and I both really liked the terrain we saw,
great scenery, long climbs, ridable trails, and old roads in an area that
seemed almost empty. Despite our enthusiasm, it wasn’t until the next summer
that we were able to pull off a ride to connect the two areas.
Mark and I planned the ride to connect the best of our trips
to Max Patch and the Mt Sterling area. We knew this one would be a huge day
with a lot of climbing and some significant route finding. It was too big for a
full loop, so we needed to set up a shuttle. We left one car at the Big Creek
Ranger Station in the Smokies, and drove over toward MSSF the direct way
without using I-40. However, the roads were slow going, and Mark felt that the
interstate would be faster. I had forgotten to turn on the GPS or otherwise
keep time, so I’ve got no real data to say which route was faster.
Once on the bikes we found the
roads in MSSF were in pretty good shape, but a bit steeper than I remembered,
maybe I wasn’t in as good shape. We rode the northern most route (CNF Rd 225101)
in MSSF, mostly b/c those roads would be new to both of us. The last, steep
mile to the Max Patch Road was on PNF 2251. This really is a great place to ride.
Zero traffic, nice surface, and great scenery.
We felt good when we reached the Max Patch Road (Rd 1182) at the 10 mile mark,
so we took a side trip to the Appalachian Trail trailhead, and then walked up
the short path to enjoy the views from the open summit of Max Patch.
Mark had had a recent crash on one of his Greene County
rides, so he was in no mood to open up the bike on the descent down the Max Patch
Road to I-40 and the Pigeon River. It’s a bit unusual for me to be the faster
downhill rider, but that was OK. We had about a mile and a half on the Max Patch
Road before turning down PNF 148 which is the Cold Springs Road. The descent took
us 46 minutes, probably as slow as anyone has ever ridden down that road. We
hit the auto ford over the Pigeon River near the Harmon Den Exit at almost 20
miles around noon.
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| Pigeon River auto ford. |
From the river it is a long crank upwards toward Sterling
starting up PNF Rd 288. There was some sort of event going on at the houses
near the Hicks Cemetery, it was good to see someone taking advantage of that
spectacular location. We saw our last carload of people not long after. Next up
is perhaps the most dramatic overlook in the Smokies region, the shear drop off
at Buzzard’s Roost. Here its possible to believe you could drop straight down
to 1-40 and the Pigeon River below.
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| Buzzards Roost |
At the 26 mile mark we came to our first decision point on
the ride. I was curious about the road shown on the Dunigan map (PNF 3537) on
the crest of the ridge between Sutton Top and Sterling. It looked like an easier
way up to Sterling Gap, if the road was open to its end on PNF 287. This way would
allow us to visit the old tower site at Sutton Top, which I hadn’t seen.
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| Tower Road Junction. |
Mark had been to the tower site on his ride and was skeptical
that the crest road went through, but we decided it would be worth a look to
ride up there .Of course, this turned out to be a big mistake. For one, this is
where I started to tire. I’d done a reasonable job of keeping up with Mark so
far, but on the climb to Sutton Top I really started to lag. I think we ended
up walking the last spur of the road to the tower. The only real view from the
top was down the powerline cuts.
We looked at the crest road (still PNF 3537) and decided it
wasn’t a good idea to try it. It looked like it got some ATV use, but that it wouldn’t
be easy biking. And if it petered out halfway along, we’d really need a long
detour to get back on route. Skipping the 3.5 mile roundtrip to the tower would
likely have turned our ride from epic back to just epically fun.
Back on our main route we turned left on PNF 287 in another
mile and a half, then a long three mile climb to the Sutton Top junction and the
end of our proposed shortcut at Dick’s Gap. I struggled a bit on the long climb
up to the crest near Dick’s Gap which we reached near 3 PM. I really hadn’t
done a lot of mountain biking yet that spring, and this ride was a bit of a stretch
for me.
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| Approaching Sterling Gap. |
There was still another 2.5 miles and 500’ of climb to go. I
ended up pushing the last 0.3 up to Sterling Gap, but we did get through that
rather complicated spot without getting off route.
From Sterling Gap it should have been an easy ride down on gravel
NC 1387 back down to the car. Once we left the gap, Mark got out ahead, which
wouldn’t have mattered much if I hadn’t got a flat tire near Double Gap. When I
realized I had the puncture he was too far ahead to hear me shout. I was pretty
pooped and really would have liked to just coast into the car at that point. I
changed my tube, and had just learned that the new one also had a hole, when
Mark finished riding back up the road to check on me. Luckily, his spare tube held
air, and we rolled back down to the Big Creek ranger station at 5 PM for a
total ride of about 43.4 miles.
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| Who says GPS Programs exaggerate your vertical gain? |
Our return trip back to MSSF to retrieve the shuttle vehicle
took about 45 minutes to drive 40 miles. The section from 1-40 to the MSSF TH
is about 11 miles and 25 minutes.
I did detailed write-ups for both the Max Patch and Sterling
scouting rides and posted those to Matt Steagall’s Knoxville Cycling message
board. That board was taken down not long afterward, but I used drafts of those
write-ups for this article. The pictures used in this post also come from those
earlier trips, as I did not bring along a camera on the final ride. Since this
post is coming almost a decade after the original riding, remember that road
and trail conditions may have changed significantly since that time.
