A day in the woods now and then
with good friends, steady horses, beautiful scenery
and no lighting catalogs, construction decisions or plaster dust
helps remind us of why we came to Virginia!
We've ridden the horses twice at Carvin's Cove Natural Reserve
which is an easy 45 minute trailer ride from the barn.
Its 12K plus acres are managed for the 800 acre reservoir
which provides drinking water for Roanoke.
Fishing and small boats are allowed,
but we're happy about the over 40 miles of multi-use trails!
In this photo, it's mid June and we're wearing long sleeves?!
Who'd have thought that this was possible?!!
A bonus of Joe's retirement is that we can pick our days of the week to ride, and since Carvin's is a popular spot for mountain bikers, we'll be able to stay away from the crowded weekends.
Many of the trails are narrow and have blind curves;
while a few bikes now and then are fine, running into scores of them would be difficult.
We make an effort to foster good will toward the horses by dismounting
and pushing any manure that "happens" off the singletrack trails.
The hikers can step around, but the bikes would have a hard time avoiding it
on some of the narrow trails, so we aim to be good trail sharers.
The elevation changes were gradual on our first ride,
but we began our second visit on the "Hi-De-Hoe" trail
which climbs Brushy Mtn from the backside
and has a 500' elevation gain in little more than a mile.
The horses are getting back into shape so we only needed
to give them a brief breather part way up.
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View of Carvins Cove from the Appalachian Trail
The outdoor opportunities are abundant here and we're loving exploring our new home state!
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that's awesome. the pic of the 2 of you is great (and i like the new header and blog feel, too.)
ReplyDeleteI am so envious of your trails!!... so beautiful, thanks for sharing the photos.
ReplyDeleteWow, down in our neck of the woods! Glad you're enjoying those trails around the cove.
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