I just returned from a Thanksgiving long weekend trip to Foscoe, NC, near Boone. I brought my bike
hoping to find some sweet trails, and I was pleasantly surprised to find some great ones. I've only
been mtb'ing for a couple of months, so bear that in mind when reading my description.
I stopped first at a local bike shop in Boone, called (I think) Boone Bicycles and Touring, near the
intersection of 105 and 321. The helpful folks there sold me a topo map of an area showing the
Yancee's Ridge trail, and recommended it highly. There were essentially two ways to do it, a near 9
mile loop and a 14 mile loop. To get there, you take 105 south to Linville, turn left on Roseboro
Road, cross the Blue Ridge Parkway (what an amazingly beuatiful road!), and go a few miles down a
gravel road until you find a small bridge over a creek. Turn left and park. The trail starts right
behind the parking area.
I was warned that the beginning is a long climb, but it really is an over 3 mile climb up some
twisty rocky dirt road/trail, which had my legs exhausted after the first mile. Tempted to turn
back, I pushed on, and then got tempted to turn back again. But I walked a bit, rode a bit, and
finally reached what looked like the top of the hill at the
3.5 mile point, to be rewarded with a choice between going straight or cutting off to the right. All
the trails here are unmarked, on the entire loop, but for an ambiguous paint spot on trees once in
a while. I cut off to the right, thinking (correctly!) that both the 9 and 14 milers had not yet
diverged. Wow! All thoughts of the tortuous climb a few minutes earlier were long gone. Beautiful
single track, mostly downhill, with jumps and rocks and ruts and roots and hardpack and mud and
the whole panoply of fun things to do on a bike. This continued for some way until I reached an
intersection where I believed the 9 and 14 mile loops separated. I'm still not sure, but I did
take the 9 mile loop and made the correct choices on the trails. I highly recommend going with
someone else in case you get lost. You're way out in the middle of nowhere, and I didn't see a
soul the whole time I was there. It seems very easy to get lost. The sun was nearing the horizon
on the mountain behind me, so I took the shorter trail and hoped I'd make it before dark.
I thought the earlier downhills were fun, but it just kept getting better! Twisty hardpack and
rocks, but fast fast fast cruising. What a blast. I dont' think I've ridden anything as fun since
getting started in this mtb thing. Just a couple of short climbs interspersed in among all these
glorious downhills, and before I knew it, all of a sudden I hit the gravel road leading back to my
car, about half a mile away. I was disappointed it was over, wishing I had taken the longer loop.
Looking at mtbr.com, I see that the 14 miler has even better downhills, and then leaves you a few
miles of climbing on that gravel road to get back to the car. I'll try it next time.
What great fun!
Mark [email hidden]