son of a bitch paves 500 feet of 10 miles of UGLY road?

I like to dig out my DeLorme Maine Atlas and find some new roads to try.

There's an area I've ridden the perimeter of many many times, but never explored the interior. There are a couple of dozen ponds/lakes of different sizes in the area and roads in to most of them.

I took such a ride this morning. On the map, there was a road from George's Pond to Molasses Pond. The DeLorme designates roads with different symbols according to whether it's a National, State or Local Route. "Unimproved" roads are designated by dashed lines, and friend, you'd best have an off-road capable bike if you're going to try one of those. KLR minimum.

So anyway, the map showed this as a "local" road. They don't see much maintenance and can be rougher than thunder but the're usually at least tarred.

As this one was.

For the first few hundred yards. Then, nice, well maintained gravel. Okay, I can handle that, so I keep going. Then un-maintained gravel. This is getting a mite sketchy, but still doable.

And then the bottom fell out. Washouts. Big freakin' rocks. Remnants of the original corduroy road from the 1920's sticking up out of the roadbed. Water crossings. I was seriously considering turning around and going back, but I'd come down a washed out hill that had my pucker factor well into triple digits and going back UP that hill was not something I wished to experience.

Eventually it improved back to maintained gravel, and then the last 500 feet was paved again before it dumped onto a State Route.

It takes a peculiarly twisted individual to pave 500 feet out of 10 miles of nasty road. Tempts idiots like me to check it out...

I drive one of those about 15 years ago. Not quite as rough in the middle, but it went from paved to gravel to dirt to logging road to mud and then back the same way. A good 10-15 miles. Looked like a regular road on the map. I was quite concerned once it became a logging road in the Blue Ridge Mountains...in a VW.

CR 510 here in Marquette Co. Inexplicable short stretches of pavement.
Northwestern Rd across Marquette Co. When I first moved here, I did it all the way up to Big Eric's Bridge on a 650 XLR. About 3/4 of way I began to wonder if my body would ever be found.
I think its more improved now.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
CR 510 here in Marquette Co. Inexplicable short stretches of pavement.
Northwestern Rd across Marquette Co. When I first moved here, I did it all the way up to Big Eric's Bridge on a 650 XLR. About 3/4 of way I began to wonder if my body would ever be found.
I think its more improved now.

I was constantly updating a description of my location in my mind so I could tell EMS where to come get me.

"McComber's Mill Road, after the the Molasses Pond Outlet Road, about a mile past that gnarly hill with the big washout..."

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
CR 510 here in Marquette Co. Inexplicable short stretches of pavement.
Northwestern Rd across Marquette Co. When I first moved here, I did it all the way up to Big Eric's Bridge on a 650 XLR. About 3/4 of way I began to wonder if my body would ever be found.
I think its more improved now.

I was constantly updating a description of my location in my mind so I could tell EMS where to come get me.

"McComber's Mill Road, after the the Molasses Pond Outlet Road, about a mile past that gnarly hill with the big washout..."

Ha! Cell service?

I was in BFE on mine. I did a lot of mountain leisure driving back then as an 'out'. I made sure to carry a VHF radio with me to call for help if I needed it (I was in Fire/EMS back then and had all the area's radio channels in my radio), as there was zero cell service.

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:


Ha! Cell service?

I never thought to check. Not sure I wanted to know.

I did whip out the phone at the beginning of the road (when it was paved and I was clueless) to check the map and make sure of where I was (road signs? What road signs?) and got service there. Of course, it was up on a hill above the pond.

The really gnarly part was down in the swamps between ponds, may or may not have been service down there.

"During our lifetime, we travel many roads. There are big roads and little roads, rocky roads and smooth roads. Dirt highways and improved roads".


Bernard Fife

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
For the first few hundred yards. Then, nice, well maintained gravel. Okay, I can handle that, so I keep going. Then un-maintained gravel. This is getting a mite sketchy, but still doable.

And then the bottom fell out. Washouts. Big freakin' rocks. Remnants of the original corduroy road from the 1920's sticking up out of the roadbed. Water crossings.

I trave roads like that to get to either of the two ranges I shoot at. One is a Forest Service Road in the Prescott National Forest, the other a city (Wickenburg) "maintained" road.
 

I drove on a similar road in Highland County,Va over to Pocahontas County,Va, although not quite as bad earlier this year In my truck, no cell service, this was the road? going to the Laurel Fork Wilderness area ( you took a branch off of this road!)

I cpuld be wrong, but think the few cabins at the base of the mountain on the WV side were off grid.

Loved that 12 mile crawl.

http://www.hikingupward.com/gwnf/laurelfork/