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 The mountains of Graham County and the surrounding area are heaven for the outdoor person. I am primarily a long distance runner but also cross train and enjoy mountain biking, road biking, tour kayaking, whitewater kayaking, and motorcycling. When I'm not playing hard, Ron and I are working hard. I am the Network Administrator for Graham County Public Schools and also have our own computer repair and web page business.
(Winter time cyclecross...old Telico Plains Wagon Train Road & Cherohala) |
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 RUNNING...So where do I run???? From our door, there are hundreds of different routes on forest service roads, by trout streams, up mountains, down mountains, and untold miles of trails. If I'm in the mood for some solid trail running or mountain biking Tsali recreation area is only 30 minutes away. Tsali has a four-loop system along Fontana Lake. Two loops are 11 miles each and the other two are about 7 miles each. You can do a perimeter loop, which is 17 miles, for great marathon training. For serious strength training, I run up to Hangover, a rock outcropping at 5000' elevation in the Joyce Kilmer trail system -you can almost see Knoxville from there. This is a tough mountain run of about 20 miles with a 3200' foot elevation gain. I'm always looking for sadistic running partners who love to train and feel the pain! |
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 MOUNTAIN BIKING....I've been mountain biking for two years on a Voodoo Wango. This is a thrilling sport, I love the speed rush, and the great feeling of making it through a steep rock garden. Tsali has about 40 miles of trails for bikes. The trails are fast and not overly technical. Fontana Village is the gateway for numerous forest service trails open to mountain bikes. These trails are a bit more technical than Tsali and not as crowded. Fontana offers some challenging rock gardens and steep up hill transitions. Both areas are about 45 minutes from our front door. The Graham County area has numerous forest service roads that are not too technical but usually have killer uphills and screamin downhills. Joe Parham has a great book that details some of the bike trails in the area.
NOC Womens Bike Clinic Sept 1999 Click Here for more pictures |
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 KAYAKING The spring of 1999 came with new touring kayaks. I got a Dagger Edisto and Ron has a Old Towne Loon. Touring Lake Santeetlah provides a nice upper body workout and it's just plain fun! Ron usually takes a couple of beers and floats more than paddles, and I like to see how fast I can go. We both have fun. Spring of 2000 came the arrival of a Perception Proline Whiplash whitewater kayak. Whitewater fun can be found on the Nanty (Nantahala River) just 45 minutes away from the door. The Olympic whitewater site on the Ocoee is about an hour away. Other great whitewater sites include the . It's almost a shame not to learn whitewater kayaking with such great rivers within an easy driving distance. |
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ADVENTURE RACING What Next!!! Spring of 2000 brought 30 hours of racing in the NOC Adventure Race. The race began a 6:00am Saturday March 11th. It had stormed the night before, but by dawn it had eased up for a good start. We biked about 15 miles on gravel roads to Telico Gap where we then made a quick 5 mile hike to the Fire Tower and back to the bikes. We then biked another 30 miles to Tsali boat ramp arriving about 11:30 in 5th place. After changing into some dry cloths and eating, we then canoed 20 miles to Fontana Boat Dock, arriving at 4:30pm.
The weather worsened just as we were arriving at the boat dock. Wind and rain and cooling temperatures made this transition rather uncomfortable. We then hiked on poorly marked trails (the old Appalachian Trail) for 18 miles. This was the hardest segment because of darkness, subfreezing temperatures, soupy fog, rain/snow, and hard to find checkpoints. We arrived at Topoco at 12:30am. We then hiked back on tar/gravel roads to the boat dock, arriving cold and tired at 5:30am.
Out team, GOROOST, finished 12th overall out of 59 teams. We were the last team to officially finish the entire course. My incredible teammates were Debbie and Gary, both of Asheville NC, with support from Ron & Karen. |
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 CRUISIN ON THE SKYWAY We recently joined the motorcycle crowd by purchasing a Honda Shadow Spirit 1100, and a Suzuki SV650. We had seen so many bikes go by heading to the Cherohala Skyway, we decided there must be something to it. Now about everyday we take a short cruise to clear our heads and get some fresh air. When we feel like a long ride we make the loop over the Cherohala Skyway and return by way of the Dragon and Highway 28 through Fontana. People travel from all over the United States to ride these roads and we can do it everyday! Our good friends Carl and Polly join us when they can riding their Kawasaki Vulcans. Now we understand why our county has such a reputation for great biking roads.
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is the place for some awesome road biking. I've got a new ride, a Litespeed Appalachian for serious roadwork and some wintertime cyclecross. Cherohala Skyway from Telico Plains to our front door has some grannygear climbs which are rewarded with 50mph downhills - HANG ON!
We ate a quick breakfast then biked 20 miles back to Tsali Boat Ramp - at least it was daylight and not raining. The final leg was a bike over Watia to the NOC, arriving at the finish line at 12:30pm Sunday.