I did not have to race on Saturday, but was required to attend a pre-race meeting on Saturday afternoon at the race venue. We planned to do a light road ride out of Durbin in the morning, then get over to Snowshoe to watch the Junior XC races, Cat. 1 Short Tracks and Downhill qualifying. We woke up to heavy rain again, so we waited that out before starting our road ride. We planned to climb out of Durbin on Hwy 92 and ride to an overlook that I had seen on our drive in on Thursday night. It was a challenging climb up Cheat Mountain with steeper grades in the first mile than I expected. Shannon was riding on my hardtail with some bigger tires on it, so it was not exactly rolling fast on the pavement. She had a tough ride, but it was scenic so she enjoyed most of the climb.
Shannon coming up the steeper lower slopes
The plan was to ride 40 minutes out, then turn around. We crested the first part of the climb at about 20 minutes and continued on in search of the overlook. There were a few houses dotting the side of the mountain along the road, but behind them was all forest. Hwy 92 goes right through the middle of the Monongahela National Forest. I persuaded Shannon to go on past the 40-minute mark as we still hadn’t found the overlook. We finally came to it near the top of the mountain and it wasn’t really an official overlook, but it was a decent view. We decided to finish the climb since we were so close and were hoping to find a better view.
View from the "overlook"
There was a better view from the summit and we learned a bit about the mountain. It is actually more of a ridge than a mountain and spans 50 miles across the Allegheny Mountains. It is the same mountain we are racing on at Snowshoe. The road topped out at about 3,755 feet of elevation, but the mountain itself reaches over 4,000 feet in several places with the highest peak being at 4,848 feet at Thorny Flat, which is near Snowshoe. We climbed about 1,000 feet in five miles from Durbin up to this point. The top of Cheat Mountain is not only rugged with steep sides, but it has its own local climate that is often much harsher than the surrounding areas. Winters have historically been very hard here with snow sometimes falling as early as August. In some years the mountain top has recorded 30 more inches of precipitation than the surrounding valleys. The mail had a hard time getting through this area in the 1800s. The Trotter brothers deliver the mail between 1855 and 1858 and had to endure some wicked winter conditions. The Postmaster General in Washington, D.C. had not been pleased with the amount of time taking the brothers to deliver mail over the mountain and reprimanded them in the winter of 1855 through a letter. The reply they sent back was recorded on a sign at the top of the mountain:
“Mr. Postmaster General Washington, D.C.
Dear Sir:
If you knock the gable end of Hell out and back it up against Cheat Mountain and rain fire and brimstone for 40 days and 40 nights, it won’t melt the snow enough to get your damned mail through on time.”
There was also a Civil War battle here in 1861 and a logging boom in the late-1800s that stretched into the 1900s. The mountain was almost completely barren by 1960 when logging ceased. It was once home to the largest Red Spruce forest south of Maine. With it now being part of the national forest the mountain is recovering back to forest with a lot of spruces to be seen near the peaks.
We saw a forest service sign in the distance so I decided to go check it out. The sign was at a gravel road and pointed toward Gaudineer Knob. Shannon was ready to go back after her long climb, but I persuaded Shannon to go further and we started along the gravel road. We ended up climbing two more miles to get to the Gaudineer Knob summit at 4,448 feet. Shannon was about to strangle me at that point, but the beauty of the surrounding forest saved my life. It was dense spruce forest with moss covering everything.
On the gravel forest road...still climbing.
Beautiful forest
Moss everywhere as we near the summit
There was a short loop trail at the top, so we hopped on that and found not only a good view at an overlook, but also the most amazing forest floor I have ever seen. Everything was covered green with moss. It looked like carpet in places. The tiny trail was the only thing not covered with moss. It made all the climbing worth it and was the kind of fun adventure we search for on our trips. After taking pictures and soaking in the sights, we headed back down to Durbin, which was almost entirely downhill. Our one hour ride turned into 2:10 with over 2,100 feet of climbing. We returned to the house with big smiles on our faces, and a little fatigue in the legs.
Starting in on the Gaudineer Knob trail
Gaudineer Knob overlook
Maybe the best looking piece of singletrack I have ever seen.
Wish we had some food to eat at this table.
Shannon coming down on the gravel road
This sign made us both really happy. Downhill to Durbin!
We thought we had missed out on the Junior XC races, but the morning storms had again delayed the race schedule and we still made it to Snowshoe in time to watch the second half of the races and see all of the Cat. 1 Short Tracks and Downhill qualifying. Our regional riders did well again with Harrison Klapheke taking second in Junior 15-16 XC and Seth Kemp winning the Cat. 1 19-29 Short Track title. Dustin White had another good ride and was seventh in the same Short Track, while Shawn Smith cracked the top 10 in the 30+ race.
Junior Men XC
Simon Lewis coming out of the final section of scattered rocks.
The rocky area in the woods turned into one big puddle after so much rainfall over the past few days.
This turn was in the final section which had rocks sticking up everywhere. It was a rough ride.
The second piece of singletrack on the loop was a muddy mess and almost unrideable after the rain.
Simon was faster running it.
Video: Junior Men 17-18 XC
Video: Cat. 1 Men Senior Short Track
Downhill qualifying was fun to watch. I would love to have watched the Finals on Sunday, but today really was the only day I would be willing to walk enough to see some of the course. There were some big jumps and fun singletrack sections. I thought it was a really good course for National Championships, so at least one event had a good course. We had hoped to catch some dual slalom action, but the lift tickets were a bit too high for our liking. You had to take the lift to get down to the course, which was much further down the mountain than any other event. We hung out up top instead and grabbed some ice cream for dinner. Not the healthiest option, but we had to find something to hold us over until the meeting, which had been delayed due to the schedule changes throughout the day. We had tried to grab some dinner, but I was not going to pay $32 for a 14” pizza that didn’t even look very tasty. I don’t know how families from other regions were able to afford airfare, accommodations at the lodge and eating in the village.
First big jump on the Downhill course
Another big jump
Singletrack was in the Downhill course and it dried out nicely. Looks like we are doing XC on the wrong side of the mountain.
Video: Downhill Qualifying
The UCI Pro Rider's Meeting had been pushed back about two hours. We made our way over to the event center at the time that was announced on the PA system during the short track. They started off doing podiums for all the day's races. We sat through about 45 minutes of jersey presentations and pictures. When the podiums were finished we expected the meeting to start, but then everyone filed out of the room and Shannon and I were left standing alone. Turns out they had emailed everyone to move the meeting time again. The time was moved up of course and we missed it. Thanks for the announcement where everyone could hear it and thanks for sending the change by email when nobody had service! So I missed the mandatory meeting and didn’t get the credentials Shannon needed to be present in the Tech/Feed Zone during the race. What a waste of a nice evening. It was almost 10 by the time we got back to the house and started to cook ourselves some real dinner. Not exactly the way I wanted to prepare the night before the biggest race of my life.
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