Dupont Day 1

The second day of our trip we hit Grammys on our way to Dupont. We made a loop around Reasonover Creek Trail around to Lake Juliard. I remembered to snap a picture of the lodge this time as I thought it was pretty cool. We headed on up to the old runway on top of the hill so we could take airstrip trail down. This section had recently been redone as it was very soft soil down near the bottom. At the base there were a couple of logs that we tried to ride. I don't think I made it without dabbing a foot when trying to switch logs.
We then rode down the trail to the base of the waterfall. We parked the bikes and walked out on the rocks at the base of the falls. We caught site of a snake and I almost jumped on a wasp so I took a few pictures. There was a short log ride on the trail back up from the falls that was neatly integrated with the rock. We then rode up to the stream via Shoals trail and stopped to check it out. A couple of riders waded over from the other side while we were there. We headed back up and took Laurel Ridge to Mine Mountain. At this intersection there is a log up of the ground about 4-5 feet. Jay got up on it and contemplated riding it. I am still not that confident with my balance and since we still had a whole day of riding I did not ride it for fear of falling off and not getting to enjoy the rest of the trip. We rode mine mountain and rode back to the parking lot. We really wanted to get a few more miles in so headed up mine mountain backwards with the intention of looping back around the lake. When we got to the other side we decided to go back over mine mountain again instead of riding the road out. This last time it was much easier and I even got to stop and snap this picture of a turtle crossing the trail. As there were some horses coming Joel helped it off the trail. We got back to the parking lot and ran into Woody Keen. He runs the company in charge of the Dupont trails and I believe is one of the most knowledgeable trail builders around. We talked to him for a while and he offered to be our guide for our ride tomorrow. We agreed to meet him tomorrow morning and headed back to camp to get cleaned up. We ate dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. It was very interesting as they could not serve alcohol because it was a dry county, but they allowed you to bring in your own "drink" for a dollar and even mix it with a virgin margarita. Something was wrong in the kitchen because we were wondering if we were going to get any food, but it finally came out after we ate about 10 baskets of chips. We headed back and had a few drinks before turnng in for the night.

Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/DupontNC2008_8_31#