Hanging Rock State Park is a hiking, climbing and mountain biking mecca in the Sauratown Mountains 30 miles north of Winston-Salem, NC. With a relatively new bike trail system, this park's postman route is 45 miles with 8,400' climb. Coupled with heat and humidity, this is a daunting all day outing!
Thankfully I had the support of my dad during the first quarter. He shuttled me at 7 am from my car at Tory's Den to the start at Dan River. The plan was to tackle the bike trail spaghetti maze before my brain got scrambled with the heat and climbs along the trails on the Hanging Rock massif.
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| Riverbluffs |
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| Moores Knob from Major Tom |
Little did I know the pleasant surprise that awaited me along these unexplored bike trails once I left Riverbluffs and connected from Indian Creek via Moore's Spring Rd. The dreaded spaghetti maze turned out to be made of sweet single track through wonderfully healthy coves and ridges.
It's here that I bumped into a long time trail running friend and inspiration: Keith Wood. Of course Keith knew all about these local trails and gave them a thumbs up. I finished up the bike trails and moved on to visit the beautiful but overcrowded Lower Cascades en route back to Indian Creek.
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| Dad and Keith |
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| Sweet bike singletrack |
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| Upper Cascades |
I remembered to tag CCC Heritage on my climb up to the visitor center, which was absolutely hopping on this gorgeous, but warming Saturday. After filling water, I tagged Rock Garden and Upper Cascades before beginning the grind up to Hanging Rock.... And reality began to sink in.
The terrain was getting tougher and the day warmer a marathon in at 5:30. Things got worse as I made a seemingly unending traverse out and back from Cook's Wall. A juicy nectarine cheered me up, but then I got lost for a bit in the campground. I made Moore's Knob Tower at 7:20.
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| Cook's Wall and Moore's Knob from Hanging Rock |
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| Sauratown Range from Moore's Knob |
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| Missing that sweet bike singletrack |
I carried a pace sheet for 9 hours. But given the heat and technical hiking trails it was going to be challenge enough to break 10. Detecting a trend yet? The lake swimming area and shaved ice food truck were almost unbearably tempting. Good thing I didn't have my wallet.
Dropping down Tory's Den it was going to be close. The only way I could break 10 was if Ruben Mountain gave me some relief from the relentless roots and rocks. It did! I kept up a decent pace on tired legs through here and fought through cramps to finish in
9:55:19.
NC state park postal runs:
| 2/5/2022 | Umstead | 35 | 2,885 | 5:15:34 |
| 3/6/2022 | Umstead | 36.6 | 3,072 | 5:30:02 |
| 3/20/2022 | Eno River | 34.8 | 3,203 | 5:23:30 |
| 4/1/2022 | Morrow Mtn | 35.2 | 4,291 | 6:06:50 |
| 4/10/2022 | Medoc Mtn | 30.9 | 1,534 | 4:55:44 |
| 4/24/2022 | Pilot Mtn | 32.3 | 4,219 | 5:40:12 |
| 5/1/2022 | Raven Rock | 37.1 | 4,038 | 6:51:06 |
| 5/21/2022 | Stone Mtn | 28.6 | 5,972 | 5:55:40 |
| 6/11/2022 | Hanging Rock | 44.6 | 8,406 | 9:55:19 |
| 9/9/2022 | South Mtns | 70 | 14,000 | 16:06:23 |
| 10/22/2022 | Umstead | 36.6 | 3,072 | 5:10:48 |
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