just got back from the adirondacks
on tuesday i headed up to the adirondacks. came back friday. love it up there. my family owns about 180 acres of land up there that was logged about 4or5 years ago so there's still reminents of many of the logging trails to ride around on, up our mallon mountain. most of them have grown in with underbrush that just needs a couple of passes with the sickle bar mower and is fine for a year. most of the trails up there on my property are still quite muddy. i want to build some nice trails up there this summer. add a bunch of stunts once we get a chainsaw up there that works. only potential prob is that we are limited on how many "structures" are allowed on our property cuase it's a national park. so i have to find out if some chutes, ladders, teeter-totters wuld count as structures. there's a bunch of deadfall up there from this past winter so i'm figuring i can just use that. i've already started construction on another small bridge. it's just a bit tiring working solo with just an axe to cut the trees up and drag them to where they're needed. riding the official park trails down the highway (28n) are pretty good too. there were also patches of snow left that were up to a foot deep in some places in the shade. most had melted though. we got snow on wednesday but for the most part that all melted on thursday when the sun came out.
if you're ever in Minerva or northcreek area, you have to try biking into the blue ledge cliffs (28n => north woods country club road).you have to walk the first 1/6 mile unless you're good at trials. the rest is bikable, tech type stuff. so fun. you get to the end which i think is 5miles in, and can go swimming in the hudson (or it might be the boreas)river that runs along the cliffs. then you get to ride out. biking down northwoods country club road to the boreas is fun too. it's basicly a 4mile downhill (first mile paved, rest dirt, and 2 small hills) down a dirtroad, and go swimming, then bike out or get a buddy driving a car to drive you out if you're too tired.
plus you can go freeriding at gore mountain in North creek.
back to my own little personal MTB mecca, i have an idea of where i want to lay out the primary trail. and what i to include as far as stunts. i've already started a small jump section near the house. there's some awesome natural terrain/drops up there. my family owns mallon mountain so i think i'm gonna try to cut a trail looping around that as well. i'm so hyped about this. in the previous years, i had walked through some nice potential trail areas, but didn't take much serious initiative. definitely would help to get a nice chainsaw to help in cutting up the deadfall lengthwise to make it easier to build the stuff. plus since it's my own families private property,i don't have to worry about not being allowed to ride, any other trail users, or any laws restricting access.
the adirondacks in general is definitely an awesome place to ride. most the park's official trails, are awesome to ride and i don't think there's complications as far as trail access. all the other trails users are kind. if you hate mud, you'll wan to avoid it though, at least until summer, cause there are a bunch of mud spots from stream crossing or spring thaw on most of the trails through a majority of the year. nothing too serious. alot of the trails are pretty remote and cell phones don't work in most places, so you'll probably want to go in a group and be prepared.
i highly reccomend the adirondacks as a vaction spot for bikers. it's close to new england and takes about 4-5 hours to get to north creek from boston if you go via the mass pike.
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