F.A.T.S.

Dennis and I made our way to FATS on Saturday with hopes of completing all of the trails including the newer ones. We got an early start and arrived at the trailhead at 8:00 am. Our goal was to be back at home by 1:00 pm before the kitchen pass expired.

It was quite solitary at 8:00 am except for one other car in the parking lot and this guy was making enough noise to wake the wildlife. He had his radio cranking out Dance Music tunes echoing across the forest.

After glancing at the posted map, we headed down the trail. We did the “left turn only” route which takes you all of the way out to Brown Wave then Skinny Loop, then Great wall. After 20 miles of this we were joking about the lack of climbing. Somehow we both felt like we had rolled downhill for 20 miles. After regrouping, we headed down Deep Step and were going to intercept the connector over to Big Rock and Tower. Here we found some elevation and did a good bit of climbing. I really liked the connector trail and the short pavement and gravel road section. Big rock has some serious elevation to it, but they built it following topo so the limited climbing sections are short and sweet, but numerous. By this time, there were a lot of people on the trails. We also crossed paths with a hunter who was hiking to his favorite spot in the woods. I had my Red Wolfpack jersey on, so hopefully I didn’t look like a deer.

We ended up running short on time and had to bail early, but we ended up with about 35 miles and 3.5 hours in the woods, including a flat and some sag stops. I believe you can now get close to 50 miles out there. We skipped Tower and only rode half of Big Rock to get 35. I want to go back and do the full 50-ish soon.

Jim was on board to go with us until “something hit him” and he had to pull out the night before. I hope you are feeling better.