Charlie Schuessler
New member
September 4, 2005
Loon Mountain
60-70's - Sunshine – No Snow Making in Progress
It was interesting to see the parking lot with automobiles in it. The mountain had all kinds of activities like wall climbing, horseback riding, bicycling along the river and the Gondola ride to the peak where they had brunch and the Jamaican Café’ was open. We had another plan :idea: , which was to pedal up to the Jamaican Café on mountain bicycles.
We started by cycling around to the east side X-Country Skiing Trails and discovered major road construction and a number of houses under construction…right up to the White Mountain National Forest signs…we were informed that eighty new units were going in…
We climbed up into the X-Country Skiing Trail network, which eventually led us up to the Brookway Extension trail just short of the North Peak Express Chair base. The alpine ski trails are constructed for downhill skiing and not much else, never mind uphill bicycling trails, so a lot of walking the bikes up the loose gravel and wet grass began to take place…we pedaled and walked intermittently across the junction of Walking Boss-Flume-Triple Trouble-Basin Street, passed under the East Basin Double chair, uphill on The Link, uphill through Grand Junction, up Bear Claw, up and around Sunset to the Summit Lodge. Total Time 1:18:30. No easy chore under the hot sun…however there were groups of people walking up the mountain as well as walking down…
At the Summit, where people were coming out of or going in the Gondolas, we being the only people there with bicycles, well we stood out… 8) nothing bad of course, however we still stood out…after a couple of minutes to cool down we cruised over to the Café’ with the REGGAE-BEAT and took a deserved break on the deck :wink: …made some small talk with other visitors and just felt good being at the Loon Mountain Summit since late April…
After cooling down and enjoying a snack we headed down Exodus to Bear Claw to Grand Junction to Seven Brothers, easterly to Picaroon across Loon Mountain Park, Picked Rock, Blue Ox, Rampasture, Northstar, Coolidge Street, Rum Runner and Speak Easy onto a newly cut trail (service road?) down Snubber to the Governor Adams Lodge. Along the way down, we had to stop a few times to let the brakes cool…as stated above the trails are for DH skiing and not much else, riding down on bicycles was no easy chore…besides the extremely loose gravel there are run-off culverts, rocks of all sizes & shapes, grass, erosion & critter holes, etc… to keep on eye out for because any & all will send you flying without warning…
We rode across the Adams Base area then up Picked Rock to the top of the Super Pipe across the Octagon Base Area to Brookway to the X-Country Trail Head we started the Alpine Trek from, winding our way back to the main parking lot…nearly 11-miles in 2:14:32. No crashes, falls or injuries…
I am now looking forward to skiing in November…Think Snow! :dunce:
Loon Mountain
60-70's - Sunshine – No Snow Making in Progress
It was interesting to see the parking lot with automobiles in it. The mountain had all kinds of activities like wall climbing, horseback riding, bicycling along the river and the Gondola ride to the peak where they had brunch and the Jamaican Café’ was open. We had another plan :idea: , which was to pedal up to the Jamaican Café on mountain bicycles.
We started by cycling around to the east side X-Country Skiing Trails and discovered major road construction and a number of houses under construction…right up to the White Mountain National Forest signs…we were informed that eighty new units were going in…
We climbed up into the X-Country Skiing Trail network, which eventually led us up to the Brookway Extension trail just short of the North Peak Express Chair base. The alpine ski trails are constructed for downhill skiing and not much else, never mind uphill bicycling trails, so a lot of walking the bikes up the loose gravel and wet grass began to take place…we pedaled and walked intermittently across the junction of Walking Boss-Flume-Triple Trouble-Basin Street, passed under the East Basin Double chair, uphill on The Link, uphill through Grand Junction, up Bear Claw, up and around Sunset to the Summit Lodge. Total Time 1:18:30. No easy chore under the hot sun…however there were groups of people walking up the mountain as well as walking down…
At the Summit, where people were coming out of or going in the Gondolas, we being the only people there with bicycles, well we stood out… 8) nothing bad of course, however we still stood out…after a couple of minutes to cool down we cruised over to the Café’ with the REGGAE-BEAT and took a deserved break on the deck :wink: …made some small talk with other visitors and just felt good being at the Loon Mountain Summit since late April…
After cooling down and enjoying a snack we headed down Exodus to Bear Claw to Grand Junction to Seven Brothers, easterly to Picaroon across Loon Mountain Park, Picked Rock, Blue Ox, Rampasture, Northstar, Coolidge Street, Rum Runner and Speak Easy onto a newly cut trail (service road?) down Snubber to the Governor Adams Lodge. Along the way down, we had to stop a few times to let the brakes cool…as stated above the trails are for DH skiing and not much else, riding down on bicycles was no easy chore…besides the extremely loose gravel there are run-off culverts, rocks of all sizes & shapes, grass, erosion & critter holes, etc… to keep on eye out for because any & all will send you flying without warning…
We rode across the Adams Base area then up Picked Rock to the top of the Super Pipe across the Octagon Base Area to Brookway to the X-Country Trail Head we started the Alpine Trek from, winding our way back to the main parking lot…nearly 11-miles in 2:14:32. No crashes, falls or injuries…
I am now looking forward to skiing in November…Think Snow! :dunce:
