Sterling Forest’s New Augusta Mine Trail

Over the last few years, it’s been interesting and enlightening to learn about people throughout the New York/New Jersey region who are constructing new mountain bike trails. Too often, we tend to take for granted that trails exist and don’t consider the amount of forethought, time, effort, and resources it takes to design and build them.

Sterling Forest Augusta Mine Trail

It’s been especially exciting to note the increase in mountain biking terrain along the state line, where riders at Ringwood State Park and Sterling Forest have been the happy recipients of excellent new trails. My friend Jason is a big fan of both and invites me along a few times a year.

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Lake Minnewaska: Before the Blaze

For weeks, I’d been looking forward to taking my brother from Denver for his inaugural visit to Lake Minnewaska. Over the years, he’d heard me rave about how it’s one of the most beautiful state parks I’d ever experienced, east or west.

Lake Awosting

I went on about how it’s a place where you could go biking, hiking, climbing, and swimming alongside gorgeous mountain laurel blooms in June, wild blueberries in July, and colorful foliage in autumn, and it never disappoints. Although he didn’t actually say it, I assumed that his attitude was, “yeah, but I live in Colorado, so we’ll see.” While pulling into the Peter’s Kill parking lot last week, I wondered if I’d oversold our ride.

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Split Rock Quarry Explosion: 100 Years Later

In July 2010, I posted a piece about offroad biking at the former Split Rock Quarry in the western suburbs of Syracuse.

Over the next eight years, the piece ended up getting a surprising amount of pageviews from non-skiers in Central New York.

Apparently, they’d stumbled upon it through searches and then posted or e-mailed me several dozen comments about the massive munitions explosion in 1918, mountain biking through the abandoned area, and especially the eerie atmosphere that has reigned there since its abandonment decades ago, even on a beautiful sunny day.

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