thegock
Well-Known Member
I think so. I know a guy who guides there and I can tell u about it when we ride.
Don't know when it closes or if it matters for non lift served trails?
This is NOT the greatest blog in the world, no. This is just a tribute!
- Thread starter rick81721
- Start date
I think so. I know a guy who guides there and I can tell u about it when we ride.
Don't know when it closes or if it matters for non lift served trails?
Mountain Bike Mike
Well-Known Member
Mtn creek has XC trails on the back side and I am 99% sure you need the lift to get to it. Definitely worth it.
Your bike can handle many of the downhill routes and to get back down the mountain from the XC trails, you can ride down on trails like Greenhorn and some of the offshoots of that trails or take the lift back down like a wussy la la.
Nah, you can park in the back and ride up a dirt road to get there, or ride in from Hamburg WMA. You can also ride up from near the Vernon base if you are crazy like @DownhillR3 or @pinkshirtphotos.
DownhillR3
Well-Known Member
@thegock
If anyone wants to be toured around Mountain Creek XC Trails, PM me. I used to build all the trails there and still ride them frequently, yes... I pedal up from the base. You do NOT need to take the lift. Access can be had by climbing up the ski resort side or drive in from Hamburg Mountain on a dirt road for roughly 1.5miles.
Closes end of October but XC can be ridden right up until ski season which is usually mid-December.
DownhillR3
Well-Known Member
Ive always wanted to ride Stokes, let me know when your going back!!!
thegock
Well-Known Member
#wingmanapproved
huffster
Well-Known Member
Reading this thread made me think: "I need to get back to Stokes. It's been awhile". I went there today. Very pretty forest with a wide diversity of trails. I wish I knew it better. But, the unfamiliarity is part of what I like about it. This is my ride from today.
https://www.strava.com/activities/742613836
thegock
Well-Known Member
I think that @rick81721 will be up there by noon on Friday 10/14. Probably in my Red Honda Pilot. You around? @JimN?
Sadly, I will be working in the morning and then going to a wedding in the afternoon. So I'll be stuck in church trying not to catch fire.
Nice work on the link. Another pro tip is that you can go back and edit the people tags and name them whatever you want, @selfieking
Yeah, fun little trails there. I remember hitting that place up years ago when my son had a soccer tournament at RU.
Also I think @jimvreeland goes there when he's looking for man love.
Also I think @jimvreeland goes there when he's looking for man love.
DownhillR3
Well-Known Member
No, I have to leave for work by 1;30PM tomorrow. If you want to do a morning ride, I can pedal up the mountain and tour you guys around. PM me if that would work.
@huffster , no way! What trails did you take, I wish an MTBNJ Group could be organized for a Novemeber ride at Stokes, really have a feeling its a rad place.
Steve Vai
Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
True Story.
thegock
Well-Known Member
thegock
Well-Known Member
Mountain Creek Park
Something totally new for me - only time I've "downhilled" was bombing the pipeline at the sourlands. So I drive to my wingman's (@thegock) place, then he drives us up to Mountain Creek. We debated on the way up whether to start in Hamburg Wildlife Management Area (btw why isn't that place on the list?) and ride in to the XC trails or do the actual downhill experience via the lifts. Since the spirit of the board listing seems to be downhill, that was the final decision. We got there around noon, got our lift tickets and headed to the lift. We talked to a guy (Jason) in the parking lot who were following on 287 on the way up - he had a nice Yeti downhill bike on his roof and we figured that's where he was heading. He gave us some tips on getting in and out of the lift gondola (wasn't really that hard), so off we went. Since neither of us are into jumps or flying in the air, we planned to stick to the easy (green and blue) trails. Beautiful day and great views from the lift. Since Tom and I are sparring on the hillary/trump thread and he's a blue stater and me a red stater, he brought vikings purple jerseys for us to wear. Tom on the lift:
Great view from higher up:
We did two runs down the green trail, and another Jason tip was realized - he said expect your forearms and hands to get fatigued quickly. Probably didn't help that at least my bike wasn't optimally setup for downhill - there was a section of trail that was like washboard and it felt like I was hanging on to a flying jackhammer. So the third time we went up, we decided to ride the XC trails. Followed the signs to the red trail, which was rocky but not too challenging. It dropped down the mountain probably 200 ft or so, and we expected to find another trail that would climb back up. But we popped out on a road, and couldn't find another trail, so we kept going down the road. Luckily Tom knew the area from skiing and snowboarding there, and realized we went down the southern part of the mountain, ending up at another ski area, 2 miles from where we started. But the great thing about the detour was as we were going down this road, a truck in front of us stopped and the guys pointed to the right. We saw what they were looking at - a huge mother bear with 3 cubs. We snapped some pics, not wanting to get too close.
Two of the cubs:
They headed to a chalet just right of the first pic, and went right through their yard. In this pic you can see all 3 cubs following big momma to the right behind that fencing:
Obligatory sort-of-selfie (Tom swore he got a bear in the background) for @streetcredkev:
At the bottom, we rode route 94 about half way back to the MCP lift, then bailed into resort/residential/rental land to cut across. We went through a wooded area over a bridge where a bunch of high school kids were smoking weed - unfortunately they didn't offer any. Continued on, cut across another ski area and finally made it back to the lift. Got a drink and wings at the stand, then headed back up for more fun. Did a few more runs and hit the pump track once. On the next to the last time up, we saw the flatbed truck hauling some guy with a broken leg - pretty gruesome. They loaded him on the gondola and took him down. Maybe seeing that spooked me and I was more tense, because on the last run I wiped out on a berm and landed on my left side pretty hard. Fortunately I was wearing elbow and knee pads loaned by Tom, otherwise I would've had some serious skin removal. Now that it's a few hours later my ribs are hurting too - probably bruised them again - what else is new.
Overall a fun experience - and totally different. We both remarked how odd it was to ride for over 2 hours and not break a sweat (yet strava says we climbed over 5000 ft - tho we did get a few hundred feet of real climbing on our detour).
25 parks to go. The overall plan is to hit mostly north and central jersey parks over the next 4-5 weeks, then go after the south jersey ones when it's colder.
#wingmanapproved
#makeAmericagrapeagain
#straightcashhomie
mtf
Yeah, too bad you missed the xc trails at the top. They are to the right of the lift, go down the service road, it curves around to the right then make a left and entrance to trail is up on the right. Kinda tucked away if you don't know where to look, not many people at the top are looking for xc trails. There is a nice loop at the top that goes for close to an hour. Also tour not complete without a stop at the beer garden🙂
thegock
Well-Known Member
We hit the Biergarten and had to fight off the cougar gang that took our picture.
They no longer have Hacker Pschorr Oktoberfest. Bummer. The Sam Oct is swill and the Hofbrau not the best.
#makeAmericagrapeagain
We hit the single
track, but I got us lost.
Mountain Bike Mike
Well-Known Member
Great job - your big gunz should be able to handle the arm pump... If you want to do a workout to build your forearm endurance, go to your medicine cabinet and take two viagra.
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qclabrat
Well-Known Member
hey is that #11 for Joe Kapp, if so you're older than I thought