Palmetto Trail - Awendaw to Monck's Corner

I'm a sprinter at heart. I've been trying to fix it for years now but the going is slow. I blame it on the BMX racing. Its 45 seconds of full tilt go. I built up a single speed cruiser for getting around town in Clemson way before it was hip to SS anything. It was a rusty heap that I literally bought out of a pile of rusting bikes for $5 or $10 and brought back from the dead. I bring it up because this bike was designed and restored to be a chill machine. What did I do? Sprints between my apartment and class. It jumped sidewalk ramps like a dream. I took off from a light so hard in town that I blew a chain and crumpled into a bloody lump in the middle of the street. Honestly, I didn't regret it. I'm a sprinter at heart.

Why do I bring that up? I have a passion for long distance adventure and being a sprinter makes that really hard. No matter how fit you are if you don't pace yourself smartly, you blow up. It doesn't help if you have a (as yet undiagnosed) lung problem that leaves you face up on the side of the trail content to sleep with ants and mosquitoes taking their fair share of you.

I decided to take a swing at the Palmetto Trail back late in 2011. Its taken this long to post anything about it because... well, it aggravated me. Looking back on it I definitely had Type II fun (fun to remember - not as fun to do). The original plan was to drop off in Awendaw and pedal my way up to home in Lexington, SC. That's a couple hundred miles on singletrack, jeep trail, pavement and urban sprawl. I ended up biting off 50 miles of it from Awendaw to Monck's Corner, SC. Here are a few photos from the trip...

With a full time job and two kids there really isn't a ton of time to get packed and ready before trips like this. I do get all of my gear together in a pile, plan meals, routes, etc. but it seems like the last minute preparation always suffers. That's OK, I can take care of it in the hotel room, right?

The other thing that I don't do enough is thank my wife for being pretty rad. She tolerates me taking off on silly solo adventures when most other wives would tell me to go read a book. In this particular instance, she loaded up Kate & Mason and drove down to Charleston to drop me off.

Mason doesn't know that he isn't in a luxury crib.

Kate needed to set up a campsite next to the actual bed.
 She's going to be an adventure princess!

Lots of waffles in the morning before hitting the trail.

Palmetto Trail trailhead. I can't describe the mosquito
density here... brutal.

A view of the marsh along the trail out of Awendaw.

Its gorgeous trail and easy going.

I never get used to seeing palm growing wild in the woods.

Don't mount your Spot this close to your GPS.
They don't play nice together.

A view of the 'trail' along the way. This trail doesn't see much use
so the markings and trail maintenance are lacking in certain areas.
Keep a keen eye out for 90 degree turns and disappearing track.

There was a lot of sandy gravel jeep trail in the lowcountry.
Not particularly exciting but you make great time on it.
Hard-packed and fast.

This is Turkey Creek. I filtered water here because it can be a little
difficult to find along the way. This tannin rich black water is pretty
common in the lowcountry and gives filters a fit. I used my
MSR Hyperflow on this trip with decent luck.

A nice bridge shot over the creek. I tested a Brooks on this trip.
Yeah, I know its moronic to test a new seat on a long ride like this
and I knew that going in. It worked out fine but I
did learn that I prefer my Selle Italia Flite.

There was a long run of this built up trail out in the middle of
nowhere, SC. I can't muster a guess of why you'd do this but
it was a welcome change to the hidden pot holes I'd been
grinding through for the previous 20 miles.

I must have wiped out 1,000 spiders on this ride. They were particularly
bad in the first 10 to 15 miles of the trip. These guys were the most
common and have an impressively large and strong web. The front of
the Black Sheep (and me) were caked in web to the point that I didn't
bother even cleaning it off after awhile. The worst was when the spider
either hitched a ride like this and suddenly climbed onto your arm.
Worse than that was the two occasions that I managed to snag the spider
on my face. Yes, twice.I'm skittish about bugs but I pretty much freak out
when large spiders are on my face. For the record, this guy was safely
removed from the bike and relocated to a nearby tree.
No, the face spiders didn't meet as lucky a fate.

Sand sloppy enough that 2.4" tires aren't enough.
It probably was only a couple of miles but it felt like 30.

There was a lot of overgrown brush in the trail as well.
Funny enough I was glad that it still had dew on it and it was
relatively stiff brush. It did a fantastic job cleaning the spider
web crud off of me and the bike. Its the little things.

Taking a break along the way. The elevated walkway was
in rough shape and in some cases completely rotted.

Lots & lots & lots of jeep trail.

At one point I had ridden miles and miles of fire break cut that had hole after hole from rotted out pine stumps. When I got to the road near the ranger station I just laid down for a long time and took the day in. I was tired and cranky so I took a picture from the grass. It didn't take long to relax and enjoy the moment.

I remember thinking how pretty these clouds were.

Slight change of plans... no more pothole trails. I grabbed the map and picked some secondary roads.

Miles and miles of secondary roads as it turns out.

I stumbled on the ruins of an old church and the cemetery along the way. Beautiful & peaceful site.

The Monster is Growing...

As if the TNGA (my personal nemesis) wasn't long enough, someone decided to tack on another 300 miles to connect it to Pisgah. Yeah, that's 622 miles with 90,000 ft of climbing. That's like riding to the top of Mt. Everest from sea level 3.1 times if you're keeping score. Here's a link to the route.

I'd go ahead and ride it this month and post a trip report but I'm still recovering from this spinal surgery. Yeah... ;)

Failure = Success

I took a solo bikepacking trip this past Saturday night. It was a short local trip that covered 30 miles start to finish. To make a long story short, I pulled the plug around midnight for a few reasons. The interesting part is the amount of feedback I've gotten from friends and family implying that the trip was some sort of failure. I've given that reaction a lot of thought and here's why I think they're wrong:

1. I had lots of fun. It was probably more fun than if I had hung out and left in the morning.
2. I learned a few things about an unusual situation in the relatively safe local environment. I'll bail on a trip somewhere else without a doubt and I'll be better equipped next time around.
3. Just like my rule for riding: If you don't crash now and then you're not riding hard enough, you're not getting better and you're not growing. Similarly, if you don't push your gear list to the point of determining that a certain piece of gear won't work you will never know where limits are.
4. Did I mention that I had fun?

 Headed out... bike lanes in Lexington. Nice.

 My favorite spring board bridge... the return trip in the pitch black of night was fun. This bridge deflects 8-10 inches as you cross. Every time I go over I'm braced for it to let go and drop me in the canal.

A little off trail exploring on the way there... I'd pay for that on the way back out with an under-powered head lamp.

 The gear... it doesn't take much.

 

 Home Sweet Home

 

 A table for one... ramen & miso is a favorite of mine lately.

 

 I just can't stop staring at my bike... Molly was made for this.

 I keep coming back to the MSR HyperFlow filter for a reason.

I decided to call it a night around 9:30pm. I planned on staying up and out later but the bugs were driving me batty. I quickly learned that my bivy (even with the large mesh window around my head) was WAY too hot for a July night in South Carolina. Even with my quilt kicked to the bottom of the bivy I was baking alive. I zipped out and took a nap on top of the bivy for an hour or two. I eventually woke up to the familiar crunch, crunch, crunch of a campsite visitor. I flipped on my headlamp to find a fox about 10 yards from the edge of the tarp. Clapping, yelling and even throwing sticks didn't get him any further than 30 yards away at any given moment. OK, that's it I thought... I'm going home.

Packing up was easy but I was worried about visibility on the ride back. After some brainstorming I was able to hook my Kelty Triptease from my bear bag kit onto the back of my Camelbak to make me visible to cars coming up on me from behind. If you've pointed your headlamp at Triptease at night you know that its unnaturally reflective. I ended up choosing to take my Petzl E-Lite headlamp in favor of my Zebra mainly due to to the fact that its lighter and more comfortable. Unfortunately, its a notch below functional for effective off trail pathfinding and the following bike ride home in the middle of the night. It got me by and that's all it was designed for but I spent 15 miles of riding on the way home thinking of how much better the Zebra would be.

 I took a break on the ride home at a side of the road bait shop. The break was more to take in the night than to take a rest. Good times.

So what did I learn?

1. Save the bivy for cool weather.
2. Bring a decent head lamp. The e-Lite is only good around camp, honestly.
3. Think about heading off trail and what that means if you have to get out in an odd situation. I'd do the same thing again but it worked out because I was lucky, not because I gave it good thought.
4. Keep pushing. This was a good trip. How do I know? I'm smiling while I write this.

37 Miles With Just Me & Molly (my Black Sheep)

Nothing special here - it was just a good day and I thought I'd share. The weather jammed up my plans to take a 2 night hike with dad in the Foothills earlier in the week so I've been a little bummed. Saturday made up for it, though. I was able to pop off 37 miles of asphalt, single track & jeep trail and I had lunch on the trail while I was at it. Good stuff.

 Grind grind grind... it never takes long to remember why I hate road riding.

Happy Meal (ramen noodles made with my Caldera Cone)

Miles and miles of gravel jeep trail... alone as it should be

 

Take time to smell the flowers dandelions

 Lazy bike... wanted to lay around and frolic in the flowers all day

Caldera Cone Packing

I stumbled onto a nice gear revelation while packing for a recent trip. You can fit a LOT of cooking kit into the Caldera Caddy if you're using a small mug. Photo evidence:

Everything packed together

Cone in with Evernew EA355 mug on top

Mug & lid, stove, fuel, cone, measuring cup

Stove & cone - very efficient cook system

Revelate Designs Frame Bag!

The best part of this post first - Support cottage gear companies whenever you can. If you work with people that are active in the market they're serving, you'll get infinitely better product & support compared to people that don't.

This week has been a tough one for me. Over the weekend I managed to separate one of my ribs in a silly accident playing with Kate. I picked up a nasty stomach virus that wiped me out Monday & Tuesday. Apparently I didn't pay my dues with the stomach virus so I followed that up with strep throat. That put me at 102F fever and general man flu conditions for the remainder of the week. I'm sitting upright now but still feel bad. With all of that said, I'm upbeat because my new frame bag showed up in the mail today!

After breaking my Lynskey frame, I had to sell my last frame bag. They're custom to the frame itself so when the frame is gone the bag is useless unless you get a very similarly designed bike. As soon as I had the Black Sheep in hand, I contacted Eric at Revelate Designs (formerly Epic Designs - thanks for being evil, Specialized) to get one made for this frame. The workmanship and design of my first pack was great and this one is even better. Eric has added a few new features that are worth mentioning - but first the pack on the bike!

The pack fits the frame perfectly. The main storage compartment on my new bag is divided into two sections by a velcro wall. Each compartment has a separate waterproof zipper that is protected by a zipper flap on Revelate's new bags (great addition for gritty & rainy rides). The separate compartments allow me to keep fuel and other gear separate or open the storage up into one large compartment for more flexibility. The double top tube design of the Black Sheep significantly reduces my storage volume so this bag tapers larger as you move down and forward. 

 

There is a full length map pocket on the left side of the bag. My last bag's pocket only went down half way or so. That keeps the maps from going square to the bottom but it limits what you can store in there (particularly gears). I don't mind digging a little so I asked for a full length pocket. The velcro pull tabs were left a little long for me to tailor them to suit my needs. I may lop them off completely and add grosgrain pull tabs. I'll ponder that for awhile before doing anything drastic. (clever ideas are welcome)

 

The velcro tabs have a new tapered gusset to take up the stress from the tension in the bag. This bag also has ultra-rugged material on the sides of the pack where it meets the frame. This is where the worst abrasion is because of dirt accumulation and the constant rattling associated with me picking horrible lines on the trail. I'm not sure that this is a new feature for Eric's bags but its an upgrade over my last frame bag and I'm a big fan.

 

 

Eric has added bright yellow liner to the inside of the pack for visibility when digging around for your whatzit. Admittedly, its minor but it shows that the guy that's making the gear really uses the gear and is very close to the community that uses his gear. If you take anything at all from this post make it this - Support cottage gear companies whenever you can. If you work with people that are active in the market they're serving you'll get infinitely better product & support compared to people that don't.

Ultralight & Low Volume shelter

I've been working on putting together a practical low volume shelter kit for my bikepacking adventures. My hiking kit is a Mountain Laurel Designs Grace Duo tarp coupled with their Serenity net tent. This system offers a great balance of weight, flexibility and weather protection. Unfortunately, it requires that I pack the shelter on the handlebars when I'm out on the bike due to volume. This post shows the system I'll be trying in 2011 - a MLD SoloPro tarp & MLD Superlight bivy. Everything is a trade off so I'm giving up a little comfort for low pack volume.

Tarp: Mountain Laurel Designs Cuben SoloPro - 5-1/8oz (146g) with guylines
The tarp is a minimalistic design. Its a cuben fiber tarp cut long and narrow with a bonded ridgeline for 100% water tight protection. Due to its narrow design, a hard rain could get under the tarp and onto my bag. That where the Superlight bivy comes in.

Bivy: Mountain Laurel Designs Superlight Bivy - 7-7/8oz (225g)
The bivy is the larger size that MLD makes with the full mesh hood to minimize condensation in our typically humid weather. The Momentum fabric top is a water resistant breathable fabric that will keep any rain coming under the tarp from wetting out my down quilt. It also has a foot box made out of Epic fabric to help with condensation.

Poles: DAC 8.84mm OD Poles - 3-1/8oz (88g)
On hiking trips I use my trekking poles as the tarp supports. Obviously I won't have those on my bikepacking trips so I salvaged some DAC poles from an old tent. I selected different sections to adjust the length to work well with the tarp. I like to pitch the tarp low and wide for weather protection and to keep the support poles short, light and stiff. The rear pole is only two sections (23in) and the front pole is three sections (36in).

Tarp & bivy set up with Thermarest PL3

Front view of the tarp - set up low and wide

Plenty of weather protection with the bivy & tarp

Bivy alone with PL3 for size reference

Yellow ceramic coated stakes are great - very easily spotted in leaves

Low volume even without being packed efficiently