Saturday Trails

Here's the Garmin readout on today's run:

Saturday TrailHead Club Run

A real nice outing, with a lot of new folks.

Eric - drives a '65 Triumph. Michael Baucom joined us at Wilson. Kelly, Juice, Jessica, Katie, Holly, Zephyr, Manica, Carrie all running strong. "Starry" from Iceland. Goofus, without Squirky...who had surgery for blockage due to too much bone. We met up with Gilly and Willow on the trails and saw Ghost and Alan Glazner "out there" along with Galoot and his wife...I forget her name, that's terrible.

Talked with Mike Murray about Big Horn. He'll be driving up from Denver.

First outing on the La Sportiva Wildcats. Still a bit of heel pain but there's more cushioning so it's not quite so bad.

The salamander egg sacs are growing and still safely in tact on the Wormhole.

Sunday Road Ride

Good turn out for this road ride on a 60 degree+ bonus day, 2/21/10.

Some issues with the Garmin...seems my heart rate can go up to 253 or so and I can maintain 173 for over an hour. I think the thing was tracking the beats from my jersey thumping on the monitor in the wind

Beautiful day to be out there. Add about 10 miles to the overall distance due to a Garmin fumble....

Sunday Road Ride: Garmin

Local Trail Run

GARMIN TRACKING: Training Run

Nice outing on the local trails. Encountered no other runners and only one other person. It's amazing that a 1000 acres can seem so vast.

Some troubles on this outing with the right heel and the old tendonitis flare up I've had over the past 5 years. I'm thinking I may need more cushioning under the heel and may need to step up from the Crosslites to something a bit more supportive.

Will ask Helix about that.

Beautiful day...warmed up to above 50 degrees. Spring's just around the corner.

Garmin Connect - Activity Details for Local Trails

Garmin Connect -
Activity Details for Local Trails

Art Loeb Trail - Training Run Details

I'm more interested in traversing the Art Loeb Trail this spring than I am in running the Promise Land 50K. Doing this on the 24th of April conflicts with Owl's Roost, I believe. That's not a problem for me.

From Art Loeb Trail

A couple of reasons to do this instead of Promise Land (and Owl's Roost):

- Point to Point

- All single-track

- Proximity to Asheville & Brevard

- Distance: 30.1 miles (that can be increased to 33 miles by summiting Cold Mountain)

- Views: Black Balsam Bald is one of several 6,000 foot mountains the trail passes through

- Elevation Gain: 8,000+ feet.

So, I'm opening this page as an info site for organizing the adventure for those interested, who currently include:

• Goofus
• Aarp
• Mike-the-Dave Broome
• KernDog
• Helix
• Cutler Andrews
• Schnzl
• Zephyr
• Nova
• Remus
• Willow
• Mike Phillips

Squonk's optimal itinerary.

Thursday, 4/22/10: Post work drive to Davidson River Campground in Brevard. Set up tent. We will want to get a sense of our numbers and possibly grab several sites. Allow 4.5 hours to get to the campground.

Friday, 4/23/10: Logistics. This could include water, food and vehicle stashes along the trail, in advance of our run. Arrival of Friday campers.

Saturday, 4/24/10: Explore the Art Loeb Trail. There are basically 4 sections of this trail and options for doing a section and then returning to camp or assisting other runners. We'll have to figure that out. I will walk every hill and run this slowly as my longest training run for Big Horn. I expect this to take 12 hours, which means an early start, no later than 07:00. Possibly need to drop vehicles at the far side early Saturday morning. After the run, there are numerous dinner options in Brevard.

Sunday, 4/25/10: Break camp, return to real life.

Here is a map of the trail.

From Art Loeb Trail

The trail begins right at Davidson River Campground so the start's pretty simple.

The 4 section, beginning from Davidson River, break down as follows:

Section 1: 12.3 miles

Section 2: 7 miles

Section 3: 6.8 miles

Section 4: 6.8 miles

From Art Loeb Trail

Highly recommend for this outing:

1. Map of Pisgah and the Art Loeb Trail.
2. Buddy system along the trail. Certainly there will be different paces but I believe a buddy should be with us along the way. There are bee's nest and it's quite likely the bears will be awake at this point in the season and who knows how surly they'll be
3. Food and fluids - this will be, in essence, self-supporting.
4. Contingency clothing for rapid weather changes (like at the Balds)
5. Compass - there are some tricky sections in the Shining Rock Wilderness and I'd feel a lot better if each group had a compass (and knew how to use it), along with their map.
6. Cell phones - we should not count on these, but I have had luck texting to family from the balds.
7. Head lamps. I don't want to be "up there" in the dark, but...just in case.

Let's continue to add to this page and boil down the details.

Some nice photos here.

A good blog of a fast-packing excursion.

From Art Loeb Trail