West Fork Trail, Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia

The West Fork Trail is a rail trail in the Monongahela National Forest that runs between Glady and Durbin.  It's a fairly rough ride for a rail trail, and very remote, with challenging access at some points.

West Fork Trail info

The trail at the Wildell access.

Looking north from the Wildell access.

Map board at Wildell.

Not quite accurate sign post at Wildell.

If the sign is so old it has red cap soldier moss growing on it, you might question the info.

The directional sign heading south out of Wildell said the next access was 6 miles away, which would have been at May.  Unfortunately the bridge between the trail and the road at May is long gone.  Who knows how long that sign has been up, but it's not really accurate any longer.

Private drive at Wildell access.

A grassy section of trail.

With the Greenbriar River alongside.

Slightly better trail conditions here.

Crossing the Greenbriar River.

Grassy trail near May.

Sign post on FS road 44 at May.

If you're paying attention you may notice the grassy track leading 50 yards east from the Trail at May.  The bridge has been removed, but at normal (low) water levels it's a quick and easy trip to wade across the river with a bike.  There are roadside campsites near the crossing, so a base camp could be established here.

North Fork Mountain Trail, Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia

North Fork Mountain Trail is one of the more unique trails in West Virginia.  It starts at the bottom of the ridge, near the confluence of the South Branch of the Potomac River and the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River, and runs south for about 23 miles along the ridge top.

Access points are limited to the north end, south end, two trail access from the east, and a little known dead end road.

IMBA North Fork Mountain Trail info

West Virginia Trail Inventory

This trip was a short out and back from the south end of the trail.  Access is off of state route 33 between Judy Gap & Franklin.  There is a radio tower at the very top of the ridge on route 33, with enough room to park a few cars on either side of the tower access.  The North Fork Mountain Trail is directly behind the tower, and is blazed.

The trail runs very close to the ridge line for much of the distance, so amazing views over the North Fork are available whenever you feel like breaking through the trees, or following the side trails to the nearest overlook.  There is no water on the ridge, and it handles rain very well.

Typical dry and slightly overgrown trail.

Don't be surprised to find a couple of trees down.

Trail is well blazed, but would be hard to lose anyway.

Wildflowers near the ridge line.

A more open section of trail.

Lady Slipper orchid near the ridge.

  

View to the west from the trail near it's south end.

View looking northwest.

Panhandle Trail, Pennsylvania

Panhandle Trail is a paved rail trail that leads from Weirton, West Virginia to Rennerdale, Pennsylvania.

http://panhandletrail.org/maps/

The photos in this entry are from between Burgettstown and McDonald, Pennsylvania.

Parking and access at Burgettstown, PA.

Trailside rest area near Burgettstown.

Summit near Bulger.

Approaching Midway.

Midway FD from the trail.

Spur leading to Montour Trail.

Montour Trail spur.

Montour Trail bridge.

Montour Trail info:  https://montourtrail.org/

Trail parking at Fort Cherry.

At Long Last - Spring!

The snow seems to be gone for the season.  Temperatures are trending up, and the nights are no longer below freezing.

The spring peepers are out and singing, birds are building nests, and daffodils are beginning to bloom.  All this can only mean one thing, and that is that spring has finally arrived.

This winter wasn't as bad as last by any means, but we did have over 70 continuous days of snow cover - and that's a bit of a test.  Either way I'm glad that it has finally passed by and that the seasons of getting outside are back with us.

My efforts at improving my fitness have been going pretty well.  Kenny and I are in the 9th week of our weightlifting workouts, and have been able to keep up a fairly consistent schedule of three workouts a week.  I have skipped a couple of Sunday workouts, but when I have there's been a bike ride or trail work to take it's place.  Kenny, being full of the vigor of youth, is definitely showing signs of development in his shoulders, upper arms and upper body.  Even my past-prime self is slowly firming up and showing some improvement.  It's been a long time since I was involved in a weightlifting program, and it's just as little fun as I remember.

I've been doing very well with my calorie intake as well.  Forcing myself to enter everything I eat on the Mapmyride nutrition counter has been a huge help.  So far in over two months I haven't exceeded my daily allowance of 2300 calories, plus any calories burned via exercise.  According to the calorie deficit that I'm counting over the last 9 weeks I should definitely be burning off some fat, but I'm avoiding the scale until next month some time.

Despite the wet weather I've managed to get in a couple of mountain bike rides since snowmelt. The most notable was last month when there was a spike in temps corresponding to a week without rain.  Kenny was out camping for the weekend with the Boy Scouts, Diana was in Columbus visiting her sister - and I was unsupervised for the day.  So I headed down to Bavington and rode my favorite section down there.  The trails were almost all dry, with only two places where sitting water caused me to get off and walk.  It was one of the first real mtb rides of the year, and I was fairly satisfied with my riding and stamina.

On the trail at Bavington.

After finishing up at Bavington I took to the road for a couple of hours and ended up just across the West Virginia state line at Cooper's Rock State Forest.  I'd done a bit of research on this place, and thought that some of the trails open to mountain bikes and marked 'easy' would be a good, low stress way to end up my day's adventure.  Little did I know that the park wasn't open yet, so I had to park outside the gates and ride the hilly road up to where the trails started.  Once there I rode a couple of miles that definitely were NOT easy, but had spectacular scenery and views.

At Cooper's Rock State Forest, looking down 1400 feet at the Cheat River.

On the Rock City Trail at Cooper's Rock S.F.

Since that time it's rained pretty regularly, leaving all the trails around way too soft for riding.  So I've been getting out on different rail trail and road rides, just trying to get in a few miles here and there.

Getting ready to hit the trail in an early spring blizzard

Sufferfest on icy Little Beaver Creek Greenway before the snow melted.

At the edge of the wildlife preserve north of town. Note bald eagle nest in trees above steel pole.

Snapping turtle crossing on Little Beaver Creek Greenway.

On Sandy Creek Trail, PA overlooking Pine Run.

Repairing a broken chain on Western Reserve Greenway Trail in Ashtabula County.

Earlier this week I packed my kayak and bike on the car, dropped Kenny off at school, and headed east to paddle some whitewater in Pennsylvania.  There had been significant rain for two days, and I hoped that I could find someplace to paddle without too much hassle.  I got lucky on my first try, as Bear Creek (between Parker and Bruin, PA) was at a low but fun level.

Looking upstream on Bear Creek from the put-in bridge.

It had been something like 7 years since I paddled this creek, but I had high hopes that it would provide an interesting morning.  The run starts off slow, but before long some bigger rapids show up.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was still able to make the technical moves required on this class II creek, but I wasn't so overconfident from a couple of good moves to take unnecessary chances.  So I ended up walking around a couple of the harder rapids, which was just fine with me.

After the 3.5 mile kayak run I stashed the boat in the woods and hike back upstream on the old rail grade above the creek, climbing about 400 feet on the way back to the trailhead by the road.  There I changed out of my wet gear and picked up my bike from it's hiding place for the road ride back to the car.  It turned out great - about 2.5 hours of physical exertion and I still had time to get in nearly a half day of work!

And the good news is that it rained another 2 inches over in that area last night!  I'm set up to head out early in the morning tomorrow to try my look again on the creeks over there.  This time I'm hoping to get on Deer Creek, and I think that I might bring along the GoPro and try to get some whitewater footage.  If it turns out I'll be sure to link to it here on my next post!

Old house in Salem, OH.  Love those chimneys!

Reforming Habits

It's been a little while since I posted an entry, but I've noticed that seems to happen to me during the winter season.  I have less going on as the weather closes in and less to write about. But there have been some things happening, so I'll try to fill in the blanks.

Trying to ride the new fat bike around town in 10" of snow.

I took a week of vacation at Christmas so that I could spend some time with Kenny while he was off school.  There were all sorts of plans being considered, but I got hit with a nasty cold the very first day of vacation, and spent the next ten days being sick.  I recovered just in time for my birthday on December 28, but picked up the flu two days later.  This flu hung on for waaay too long, bringing a bout of walking pneumonia with it.  So I managed to use up my whole year of sick days on the first week of the new year.  It was at least two weeks before I was feeling like myself again.

Of course I had to go to the doctor a couple of times during this period.  And that brought bad news to the forefront when I was weighed during my appointment.  I'm not a tall guy, and I got over an inch shorter a couple of years ago when I crashed my bike and landed on my head, fracturing my skull.  And I do tend towards fat, so I have to keep an eye on my calorie intake and exercise level.  But it was a disappointing surprise to find out that I weighed more than I have since I was a teen.  Of course part of it was the intake of holiday calories, though I thought I'd been fairly judicious about snacking on my wife's amazing Christmas cookies.  And another factor was the marked decrease in outdoors exercise due to the weather and being sick.  But the real story is depressingly familiar - too many bad habits, and not enough good ones.

So I decided that I was going to try to change my diet and fitness during 2015.  I'm not a big fan of the spur-of-the-moment New Years resolution, since it seems like jumping into a big difficult project without a plan isn't that good of an idea.  Instead I started thinking about what I thought I could change, where my weakest points were, and what I want my goal to be.  And then I started to try to bring my bad habits under control.

My plan for the year is two-fold:  better diet and more consistent exercise.  As far as diet, I'm not as bad off as I could be, but there is definitely room for improvement.  My typical day had me start with a small breakfast, a reasonable lunch, and then a good, home cooked supper.  Where it fell apart was the evening snacking, when I was winding down before bed.  Harnessing that urge to snack in the evening is not easy for me, and it's taken me a month of self-discipline to get it back in control.  There are other diet changes as well - mainly my efforts to cut my processed sugar intake by 90%.  That means no soda (which I don't usually drink anyway) but it also means no candy or pastries.  I am definitely making progress towards this 90% reduction.

The second part of the plan is to increase my exercise levels.  Usually that would mean riding the bike more, but that doesn't work when we've had 70 days straight of snow cover.  After thinking it over I decided that going back to weight lifting would be a good idea.  In my younger days I used to have a weight program that I followed for years.  I wasn't interested in big, body builder type muscles - just in being strong enough to let me do the fun stuff that I like.  And with my 14 year old son Ken now measuring in at 6 feet tall (that's 7 inches taller than me) it seemed like a good time to get him involved as well.

Kenny

We're not going to use the Weider gym that my mom gave us when we moved, but are going back to the good old days of free weights.   It's been over a month since we started a three day a week program that takes us about an hour to complete.  I know that I'm already noticing a difference and I think Ken is starting to firm up a bit as well.  And I know that this extra boost in strength will only help my mountain biking this summer, so I'm determined to keep up with it.

But I know from past experience how easy it is to procrastinate, make exceptions to the rule, and take days off from exercise or dieting.  After thinking about it for a while I decided that I would grade my will power every day.  I start out with 100% every day and then deduct 10% for each lapse in will power - i.e. evening snacking, eating sugar packed foods, missing workouts, etc etc.  For me keeping a concrete record where I make myself declare my failures at the end of each day seems to help keep my goals at the forefront of my consciousness, so that I'm less likely to have a spontaneous weakness and break my 'rules'.  So far this has worked very well for me, as my diet and exercise have been remarkable consistent since I started.

I don't like to make the whole goal of the process to be just 'weight loss'.  There's a lot more to it than that - the establishment of more good habits and the discarding of bad ones.  I don't even like to use the scale we have at the house (those damned electronic scales are so inaccurate). But at the end of the year I'd really like to see a weight loss of at least 25 pounds.  Yeah, that's not that much right?  Right now I'm at about 195# - an amount that makes me feel fat and clumsy.  If I were to be able to get down to 170# it would make a huge difference.  If I was able to get down to my best weight that I had in my 20's it would take another 25# loss after that...

I'll keep tabs on my progress through the year as I post here, and we'll see how this turns out.  So far it seems to be working, but we'll see how it plays out as the year unwinds.

Snowscape along the farm roads north of Warren.

As far as bicycling goes it's been pretty sparse so far this year.  Even though I am now a proud fat bike owner, the snow cover has been consistent since the beginning of the year, and mountain biking has been pretty much out of the question.  I've made a couple of very difficult rail trail rides, over packed snow and ice, but not many.  There have been several rides on the empty back roads of northern Trumbull county, but with the cold, wind and ice they haven't been as long as I'd like.  Every little bit counts though, so I'll keep on getting out when I can and wait for the snow to finish melting off so that my riding horizons can open up again.

Started out as a road ride, but ended up with a nice long hike a bike through 16" of snow.

One nice thing on the horizon is that Ken and I are planning a week long bicycle tour on the Greenbrier Trail in West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest.  Diana can't take a big vacation this year since she started the new job in November and won't have vacation time accumulated till this November.  So Kenny and I plan to head out on our own and spend a week riding the rail trails and mtb trails in West Virginia.  That's meant spending some extra cash outfitting the bikes, but we already had a bunch of gear so the process is moving along pretty well.

Riding on the ice in northern Trumbull county.

Our spring thaw started about ten days ago, so much of the snow cover is gone.  I'm hoping that the ice will be off the Western Reserve Greenway Trail by this weekend, and I can get back in the habit of pushing out some paved miles within a week or so.  One thing - with better weather coming it seems unlikely that I'll go another three months without a blog post!