Sandy Snow

Sometimes the best adventures are those that present themselves when you least expect it.  Such was the case when it came to the snowfall in the mountains west of Harrisonburg on the Virginia/West Virginia line due to hurricane nor’easter Sandy.  Johnny and I started chatting about a potential ride Monday afternoon when he found out he was off from school on Tuesday.  I then decided regardless if state offices were open/closed I was going to take Tuesday afternoon off.  So the plan was set, Johnny would pick me up at 12:30, we would park at the bottom of Reddish, then climb up to see how much snow there was at the saddle and make a decision there on which way to head.

As we started the climb it was obvious that there were going to be a significant amount of snow on the mountain.  We could see a pretty good coating on Wolf Ridge and the view of the top part of the mountains was obscured by the snow coming down.  After the first couple miles we started to see snow on the sides of the road, and by the time we made the sharp left-hand turn where the grade ramps up there was a bunch of snow.

Yeah, the drifts were just a little bit deep.  The 4x4s finally broke through this section but about 1/4 mile further up the road there was a tree across the which stopped us all.  The guys in the trucks were trying to pull the tree to the side of the road with a tow strap with little success.  At this point it was snowing like crazy and the temperature was dropping so we decided to turn around and head back before we got any colder.

Riding downhill in the snow was so much fun.  I found riding in the middle of road, not in the tire tracks, was amazing.  Of course when I tried to turn too quick I found myself instantly on the ground.

You could not help but laugh.

That white ball in the middle of the last picture was the snowball I launched at Johnny.  After a quick adjustment to straighten out my handlebars we made our way the rest of the way down the forest road.  At the last corner before we got to the pavement Johnny took a shortcut through some fresh snow.

From here it was a couple hundred yards back to the pavement and very chilly five mile descent back to the truck.  We had so much snow packed on our rims it felt like riding on wheels that were out of round due to the extra weight.

When I got back home, even though I had this stupid grin on my face from how how much fun the ride was, I was thinking about all the folks who were seriously affected by the storm.  It is such a dichotomy that we were out in this weather having such a great time while the same weather system was causing so much destruction.  As I write this on the Saturday afternoon after the storm we are still waiting to hear how my wife’s family place on Long Beach Island faired in the storm.  But we are lucky as this is just a place to go for the family to go for fun, not a fulltime home.  It’s amazing how the world works sometimes.