Jonathan S and I have finalized the planning for our High Country Camp/Blue Ridge Camp ride in August. See notes below. Happy to have company. Just let me know.
The objective for the ride is enjoy some of the great roads a little further northeast along the Blue Ridge Mountains than within the normal club weekend event program. Means it’s more riding that a typcial weekend trip which means getting going and pressing-on Friday and Saturday is important.
Other commitments mean the target weekend is now Friday 9th/Saturday 10th/Sunday 11th (means we'll miss the club Bigun's Barbeque Ride-to-Eat on the 10th - can't be helped). If this looks like being a very wet weekend then we’ll postpone for one week.
I’ve made two related tweaks to the original route outline. What was routed as Friday and Saturday riding on the Blue Ridge Parkway is now all on the Friday - traffic should be lighter and progress a little easier. This created the opportunity to increase the twisities quotient for the Saturday leg by adding a loop via Roan Mountain, Bakersfield and Spruce Pine.
The map embedded below shows the route. The download links below give the GPX file and a larger version of the map.
Day 1 Depart Jefferson at 9:00AM [
Red]
Designed to offer a relatively quick 120-mile route from RaceTrac Jefferson to Hendersonville/Asheville with interstate riding limited to 40 miles. It’s followed by 25-mile urban Hendersonville/Asheville gas/lunch section. Thereafter it’s 110 miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway (punctuated by stop for gas in Blowing Rock) and a further 20 miles from the parkway to the High Country Camp.
Dining is limited at High Country Camp. Might make Saturday dinner a camp stove packet meal. However, there’s the option of a late afternoon dinner as part of the gas stop in Blowing Rock or a little further on at the Blue Ridge Diner in Boone, the latter about 25 miles before getting to the camp.
Jefferson to High Country Camp 285 miles | 6 hours 45 minutes plus stops.
Day 2 Depart High Country Camp 9:30AM [
Blue, with short cut shown in
Dark Blue if weather poor, or an added 10 mile loop kink to Marshall towards the end of the day that's not shown if weather and time is on our side]
Twisties, with less than 20% of the day’s miles riding on anything approaching a straight or “main” road. Notable interesting sections are long parts of NC194 between Vilas and Elk Park, TN143/NC261 from Roan Mountain to Bakersfield, NC226-Alt “Diamondback” through Little Switzerland, NC80 from Lake Tahoma to Micaville, and NC197 from Burnsville to Barnardsville.
High Country Camp to Blue Ridge Camp 224 miles | 6 hours 30 minutes plus stops.
Day 3 [
Cyan]
Common route back to the Atlanta area. The first 60 miles before joining SC11 near Salem has character, albeit tempered by the 9-mile stretch of US64 past Lake Toxaway. Thereafter it’s higher-paced roads on home.
Blue Ridge Camp to RaceTrac N Gainesville 143 miles | 3 hours 30 minutes plus stops.
Mark
1993 R100R