...if we keep getting days like yesterday.
It's been way too long since I've just been able to get out and ride all day. Racing is really wearing thin as of late. You have to be there at THIS time and ride THIS route and eat THIS food. It's nice to just take off for a day with a loose set of plans and see where you end up.
So I headed out on Sunday afternoon with a half baked plan to ride the old LSPR Huron Mountain stages while hunting for ski hills and birds. Due to decreasing daylight and some last minute mechanical work on a bike that's seen way too much use this year, I just drove down and parked in L'Anse to start my loop.
The weather proved to be what weathermen like to call "unseasonably warm". In fact, I think these poor dragonflies may have been duped into an early mating season.
As soon as I turned off the paved road, I pretty much had the road to myself. Dry weather has given us some great road conditions.
The Roland Lake Stage follows the same route as the road to the top of Mt. Arvon, the highest point in MI. Since I was so close, I figured "Why not?".
Passed a neat little waterfall on the way up.
Ice was still lurking in the shadows up in the higher elevations.
Success!
I spent some time up there scouting around for ski hills. Some OK potential drops of ~250ft, but recent logging in the area doesn't leave a whole lot of room for different lines. The good news is there's a ton of mediocre runs like this, the bad news is you pretty much need a snowmobile to get in here in the winter.
Earlier that morning I had rushed to try and get the stages in my GPS. Obviously, I screwed up someplace as the road I was looking for was simply non-existant. I spent some time cruising a couple of nearby roads but wasn't finding what I needed and the shadows were getting longer. 5:30pm sunsets sneak up on you quick.
As I was without lights, I decided to call it a day and book it back to L'Anse. Which proved to be great fun. It's almost a completely uninterrupted drop from 1979 feet down to about 600 on the shores of Huron Bay. Yeehaaaa!
Made it back to town with about 20 minutes to spare before the sun set.
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