I don't think you could of asked for a more beautiful
morning. The sun was shining in a bright blue sky, forsythia
were starting to bud, and the temperature was just a little
on the cold side to make the ride more enjoyable. We had a
pretty good turnout, including some newbies to the club as
well as newbies to the trail system. After a brisk ride to
the trailhead we hit the first section of single track. The
pine needles were a little mushy today and there was some
deep standing water, but this part of the trail wasn't too
bad (that will change later in the report). We scoured all
of the single track on the KGII side including the
switchback from hell, which once again left me cursing it's
existance. We then headed across to the Kettle Run area for
some exploring. Below the hill things were good, a little
wet, but good. We then headed up the hill (the highest
elevation in Marlton, NJ). This is were things went bad.
Three weeks ago this was all frozen. Today, it was a sandy
mess. I'm not talking loose sugar sand, this was deep.
heavy, stop you dead, stuff. We hit trails I have never seen
before and it took every ounce of effort to get through
them. After a few "left turns", as John T. calls them, we
ended up in a private day camp somewhere in Medford (Camp
Moore, although it looked more like Camp A-Lot-Less). If
you've seen Friday the 13th, that camp was beautiful
compared to this. Chain link fence surrounded the entire
compound. If I was going to send my kids to prison, this
would fit the description. After finding our way around the
fence and deciding we were lost, we made our way back to the
road and took the blacktop all the back to the cars.
This will probably be the last KGII ride until late fall
when things freeze up a bit and the ticks go away. I'll miss
it, but there are bigger fish to fry.
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o-o-o-o Ride-A-Lot o-o-o-o
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