The "passed out after work" Ride

Work all day, come home, pass out on the couch. I can't figure out my energy level arc, but it's definitely lowest between 2 and 7PM. It's been like this for at least ten years. It wreaks havoc with work and personal life. I lose several hours of productive nine-to-fiver work, then get home, put my bike shorts on and go full REM on the couch for an hour.

During other times of this is fatal for doing anything healthy after work. I was determined to do something tonight, so I got my shit together and headed out to the McDade trail at 7:40 PM. Yawning the entire drive, I was content with going from the Riverview trailhead to the park headquarters and back. A little over four miles round trip but with 400 feet of ascent. The Google Maps link is here, and here's an embedded version below.



I finished the ride after sundown and had to toss the bike on the tailgate of the truck and jump in immediately due to clouds of mosquitoes scoping out my truck. Yes, they are back folks. We have arrived.

And now, while I feel like I have more energy than I've had all day, I have to convince myself I have some kind of "normal" circadian rhythm and attempt to get to sleep by midnight. If only to bank more energy for more rides or hikes, that is! Take that, normal life! Ah, I'm trying.

[gjn]

Short hiking the "Home Loop"

Jump out through the garage door, walk a few minutes on some asphalt and land on the Appalachian Trail and take it from there. It's great to live in a spot where I can make that happen, and that's exactly what Tara and I did today after shooting out of work early to take a quick hike in the March 60-degree weather.

It's just under 3 miles door-to-door, passing Lenape lake (a rather small pond, really) after hopping on the trail at Mountain Road and taking you up along the Appalachian Trail in its southern direction. You follow the AT for a short distance, overlooking the Delaware River and Route 80 as they both squeeze through the Delaware Water Gap to your left. Below are a few photos from that section.

After a short walk, you bear right at a junction that has you pass a swampy area on your left. You are heading toward Caledonia Creek, and you make a right turn at the next junction, essentially when you hear the creek just nearby. You walk a bit more downhill, take a left at the next junction and shortly after duck off a side trail on the left that places you face-to-face with Diana's Bath, loosely placed as a series of small waterfalls and pools. It's a cozy spot, surrounded by Rhododendrons and the sound of the creek rolling over rocks and down long slabs of rock.

It took us about and hour today to make the loop, and that's with a meandering pace. Just get outside, the season is here, so enjoy. No longer are we stuck with darkness upon getting home from our day jobs, and there is more adventure than any other time of the year to digest ahead of us before we get our next dose of Winter.

[gjn]

Game-lands Detour

I found myself driving back-roads, bumpy pavement, twisting, while I stole quick glances with a ducked head through my passenger window. I was trying to follow the mountain range to ensure this road was going where I'd theorized it was traveling. We were dipping towards sunset, and I was trying to find an alternate trailhead, come hell or high mountain.

The road to the typical trailhead at State Gamelands 38, Pennsylvania was closed. My twenty minute drive was rendered fruitless, but I was determined to get on the trail system somehow, or drive around trying. I knew Hypsie Gap Road ran at the border of the game-lands, I'd found myself at the dirt track and metal gate intersection of the two several times in the past, so that was my waypoint.

A road isn't really a waypoint, but a small road in the mountains is a more fairly precise location than you'd think. Lined road turned into unlined roads, and that turned into gravel strewn surface and those finally turned into heavily pot-holed gravel roads begging for high-clearance 4x4s.

Once into the mountains on Hypsie Gap Road, I was on the lookout for the gated access roads that were really just dirt trails I'd seen in the past while mountain biking the game-lands. I began to plow into pot-holes the size of hot tubs and, at one point, drifted sideways out of the trajectory in my Tacoma pickup.

I passed a potential gated trail while glancing at the Google maps on my windshield-mounted phone and doubled back. With failing sunlight, this was going to be my quick excursion on my bike just to recon the location affirmatively. Grass Lake, in and out at a total clip of about two miles.

I threw the keys, phone and the light in my pack just in case and set off while I eyed an old Toyota sedan grind by, dispelling the idea that you needed a 4x4 to traverse this road in the first place. It was chilly at this point, and I was running short sleeves, so I skirted the lake and turned back at an intersection, but not after I defined where I was.

I snagged a few photos while the light was nice during the waning sunlight and pedaled back to the truck. I grabbed a beer out of the weathered cooler and cracked the aluminum top open while I wondered at the new summer arriving shortly, prefaced by the 60-degree weather we have already been enjoying.

I spaced my place for a while as I thought about how the mad rush had subsided and I'd have to carefully pick my way through pot-holed roadways before I joined the regular world again, and I felt pretty damn peaceful.

[gjn]

The trail map for my ride is located here.