The Whites: In Search of the Treeline by VTwintips

New England has a handful of nice bike parks, and some decent cross-country trails but other types of challenges are refreshing once in a while. I've started heading over to the White Mountains specifically to ride bikes LEGALLY down hiking trails.

the Whites

There is a small movement at my school to Take Back the Tap and stop using bottled water which is primarily tap water rebottled in disposable plastic anyways. I dunno if I took back the tap here or not but I certainly avoided the plastic bottle

Pit Stop for water. I slipped while trying to bike across and fully submerged myself soon after this photo. Camera survived.

Three miles of pure rocks and roots down from the summit. This section was good because it was actually ridable. The hardest part was when the going got flat and there were only rocks because it was impossible to move.

As I've come to expect for the Whites, the trail was primarily a gnarly rock garden.

It went on like this for about 2 miles and covered about 2500' of vertical.

A trail that will not legally be ridden by mountain bikes any time soon into the Pemigewasset Wilderness.

Mount Carrigain's summit sits on the edge of the Pemigawasset Wilderness. Looking off into the distance are trails that are illegal to ride on mountain bikes. I went down the same way I went up, which was still pretty awesome.

Although it is the tallest mountain featured, and the 15th tallest in New England at 4700', with 3000' of vertical over its 5 mile ascent, it doesn't make it above treeline. There is a nice exposed ridge that apparently goes on for a while, but I was stuck in a cloud so it didn't feel very exposed at the time.

I rode Mount Carrigain on my own, and due to an enormous thunderstorm approaching, I didn't setup my camera to film myself riding down. It turned out to be the right move. A few hours later, lightning was touching down on the road around me in torrential rain.

Mount Chocorua's summit is entirely different.

The summit of Chocorua sits not too far from a cabin that we slept in.

My friend's bike wasn't working properly, so he ran up and down the mountain and documented me riding the entire time. We were stoked when we reached the top. The sun started to set, and the clouds were beautiful. A few minutes later, the clouds were on top of us, gusting sideways with pellets of rain. It was like the mother nature told us to f-off after we got the pictures we wanted.

Mount Cardigan was our test pilot. Its summit has miles of riding, if you're willing to explore. We were.

The challenge in the White Mountains is finding hiking trails that are not on the Appalachian Trail and are not in Wilderness areas. Google Maps and Wikipedia helped sort these things out pretty easily. Its pretty hard to bomb down the hiking trails, because they are extremely technical rock gardens. The rocks kept us slow and unobtrusive to hikers. Hikers never minded our company, and liked watching us make our way down the rocks and roots. I think the future is bright for those who are willing to explore.

Author Info:

VTwintips

Member since Mar 23, 2008
1 articles