I did an exploratory ride today with my friend Renee E, at Wildcat Ridge Wildlife Management Area (basically Splitrock, near Rockaway NJ). Neither of us had ever been there before, but Renee had heard good things from some friends, so off we went…
It was a great place: a whole lot of technical riding (some of it above my pay grade, leaving me walking the tougher sections), along with some really sweet singletrack. One highlight was going up a trail to what was called “the bat cave,” an old mine with some seriously cold air coming out of it. This was early in the ride and we were still both pretty spry, so we took a few selfies before moving on.
Renee had a bit of an itinerary, some trails she’d heard we should ride, and even though we didn’t really have a grip on where we were much of the time we managed to hit most of them. Later, after my GPS died, and her phone (with trail maps) died, and we started getting lost and eaten by bugs, we’d had enough — we found our way through a nearby suburban development to the road back to our parking lot. We were out about six hours, maybe four of them riding. What an awesome day!
