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.