Tail of the Dragon August 2008

Pictures

Although we had been to the Dragon before,last time we went up it was dark and wet. This time it was daylight and the weather was absolutely perfect.

Please note that the videos on this page do not automatically start because both have sound. Roll your mouse over the video to show the video controls.

Kelsey and I rode to Duckett Mill Campground in Gainesville, one of the only campgrounds in the whole area that allows tent camping. Every other campground either has cabins or permits campers only. When we got there it was just getting dark and we discovered that it was an Army Corp of Engineers campground, which explains the tent camping.

Our site was on a thin spur of land with Lake Lanier on either side of us, Very nice, cool and beautiful. In Army Corp of Engineer camps, just like State Parks, the gates close between 10:30 PM and 7:00 PM so you cannot get in or out. We were worried about Brendan who was coming up from Alabama and would not arrive until after 10:30 PM. The folk at the gate were nice enough to walk us back and show us a path through the trees he could use to get around the gate. Pretty good. Better than Okefenokee where Kelsey had to ride through the swamp to get around the gate in the morning.

Jimmy joined us for breakfast the next morning and we left for Deals gap after breakfast.

It was a beautiful day with perfect weather. Temperatures in the high eighties (low thirties for you metric folks) with not a lot of humidity. Just perfect. Neel Gap, just before Blairsville, gives you a taste of what's to come. Some real nice twisties. A lot of cyclists this time. Perhaps because it was not so hot, but still a pretty steep ride on a bicycle!

We arrived at the Dragon without incident. Jimmy had to leave us and head out to meet friends in Elijay, so after hanging around looking at a map, we said our farewells and he left. First time we had ridden with him, but he was fun to have along with a great sense of humor. Always important, especially when things do not go as planned!

The ride over the Gap was much more leisurely this time. Firstly because we were not as hyped as lat time and secondly because it was crawling with County Mounties. We had heard this was the case. But we heard this prior to the last trip as well, and were also warned that there were a lot of squids using the Dragon as their personal race track. Neither was true the last time we were here, but both were true this time. While the Dragon was fun to ride, there are many roads in the mountains with just as many twisties with no traffic or smokies. Brendan came up with the idea of trying to shoot the ride as a movie, and Kelsey just happened to have a cameras mount he had made. The movie above is the result and gives a good idea of what the ride is like and also the behavior of the organ donors that ride the squids.

We headed back to Suches in GA and got there at dusk. Quite a long day, 250 miles might not seem far, but it quite a long ride through the twisties of the smokies.

We had heard good reports about Two Wheels Only in Suches and decided to spend the night. It was a beautiful, clear, warm night with a sky full of stars and a three quarter moon. Kelsey and I decided the hell with tents, and just rolled our sleeping bags out. It got a little chilly in the early hours, but was just great to sleep in the open.

We ate dinner at TWO and the food was very good, not inexpensive, but good. Service was fast and friendly. Mimi ran the cash register and gave as good as she got if you were in the mood for banter.

We left the next morning for home. Jeff and Brendan split off to head for AL. I told Kelsey we had plenty of time and to make life interesting how about selecting the shortest route back with TomTom. TomTom seems to treat the selection of the "Shortest Route" as a request for adventure, and we needed that to end the trip.

TomTom requested we turn right onto Coopers Gap. It looked narrow enough to be someone's driveway, which is what I thought it was, but it had a sign that said "Coopers Gap", so we took it. The road was very narrow and twisty, and, as we were in the middle of a hairpin bend suddenly turned to loose gravel. No warning signs, no nothing, just suddenly no asphalt. We were not pushing it as you never know what is around the corner on these roads, and in this case our caution was justified.

After several miles TomTom requested a U-Turn and indicated we had missed a left hand turn. I stopped and asked Kelsey if he had seen a road to the left about 200 yards back and he said it looked more like a drainage ditch, but could have been a road. We went back and made a right onto what TomTom identified as Grassy Gap, there being no other signs, we took TomTom's direction and headed down what soon became a very narrow road cut into the side of a very steep slope. The road had many stretched that had grown grass in the middle and was strewn with boulders and cross drains washed out by rain, but it was an exhilarating and fun 12.5 miles.

Grassy Gap taught us that when we ride through the mountains to a chosen destination, we ride past a lot of interesting rides and places. Our next trip will be focused on finding them and doing a bit more detailed exploration.