Mohican Memorial

Sam and I met at Mohican Memorial State Forest for a mountain bike overnighter, me full-on loaded for a two-night bikepack, Sam with Amanda's borrowed bike and backpack with provisions for one night. 

Getting there on the saturday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend, I was happy to find I was able to reserve a backcountry site at the State Forest self-serve kiosk.  Park and Pack site #7.  We got on the trail mid-afternoon, hot and muggy and no wind.  Turns out though, hopping on the bike and and riding a few miles per hour generates a nice, cooling breeze.

Our search for ye ol' site #7 began early in the ride.  However poorly marked, it's only 0.3 miles from the trailhead.  It did not help that it's drawn on the wrong side of the trail on the State Forest map and that the "Site #7" sign along the trail had been knocked down.  We bumped down a horse trail/gas line right-of-way a few hundred feet and used our savvy awareness skills to find the site.

We set up the tent and off loaded most of the camping supplies.  With light and fast bikes, we headed down the trail in the prescribed counter-clockwise direction starting at approximately mile marker 14.  The trails were in excellent condition and the riding was great.  A lot of roots in some areas.  Not too killer with the climbs, at least for me.  There were some happy little rock gardens and small gnome population near one of them.


I few miles in I heard the holler from Sam to go on ahead and not wait.  I took him up on the offer and plowed forward. There was a section that was really steep!  I glanced down to my right briefly, but told myself to just keep my eyes forward.

The stretch before getting to the river bottom and the campground (about mile marker 20-25) was the sweetest stretch.  Nice downhill, ups and downs, not too many roots.

Made it to the campground, refilled water and the check-in booth and noticed big dark clouds moving in fast.  I asked the campground attendants about a weather radar because my phone didn't have service.  Sure enough, it looked as if it was coming my way.  After turning down the offer of a lift in one of those ladies' trucks, I decided to go down a park road a bit a hide under the big picnic shelter.

I chilled out, took the shoes and socks off, and eventually got cell signal.  The storms were skirting by to the north and west.  Maybe 20 minutes into my shelter-in-place, Sam, not necessarily knowing where I'd be, came down that road looking for drinking water, found it and me!

We weighed our options, consulted my local resource over the phone (Carl) and decided to head to town for burgers and beer then ride the road back to camp.  We had ridden about 10 miles of trail and it was getting well into the evening time. More trail riding would have been possible by me, but thought best to put it off until tomorrow.

It was a good choice, going to town to the Mohican Tavern, and riding back via road.  Back at camp we enjoyed fire, good conversation and some sippin' on the tequila.

...

After a slow process of coffee, breakfast and breaking down camp, we headed back to the vehicles.  Sam split out, and I decided to do a little more riding, this time loaded with the bikpacking gear.  I parked in the river bottom at the covered bridge (man, it was busy with visitors) and biked up the road that heads to the State Forest Service Center. Had to ask around where the mtn bike trail intersects up there because, once again, the map was not so accurate.

The author, mentally preparing for Day 2 riding.

It was a nice little ride with a whole lotta downhill.  Things got a little scary here and there at my speed picked up.  I tried to remember I was weighed down with a lot of gear, I'm not 20 anymore... and I can always replace brake pads.  I was very grateful for my hydraulic disc brakes!

Some thoughts overall on this go-around:

• The rig is feeling good and didn't feel too crazy heavy or unbalanced.  I took my Eureka! two person tent in "fast-pitch" setup (no, that's not a softball reference), which I had weighed out at 6 lbs.  Pretty heavy, but it was solid storm shelter for two of us.
• I had food enough for two people for 1.5 or 2 days.  Does that mean I had enough food for me for three or four days?  Didn't seem like it, but maybe... as long as Sam is there to feed me the occasional bar and hammergel.
• As far as water, I went through a lot.  I drank almost 3 liters in our Saturday 10 mile ride.  I had another 1.5 liter bottle on me, but didn't pass up the opportunity to refill my water bladder when I made it to the campground.  Definitely going to need water filtration capability in North Dakota this summer.
• Got a lil poison ivy on my forearm.  Watch out for that stuff!
• Just because I bring the flask of tequila, doesn't mean I need to drink all of the flask of tequila.

A hazard to leaving the helmet out overnight.

Another account of the same adventure is found here: http://exhanlin.blogspot.com/2016/06/mohicans-pains-and-gains.html