My bags, packed tight with meticulously inventoried gear, impatiently awaited the approaching caravan. They seemed to know, like I did, this would be a journey like none before it. We were taking a sojourn north, into the wild….
…Ok, so that was a little over the top dramatic. What I meant to say was that me and a bunch of mountain bike buddies headed to Wisconsin a couple of weeks ago in search of sweet singletrack mountain biking, great camping and festivities and…..gnomes. We found all three during Gnomefest 6 at Levis Trow Mounds.
Luckily we had a sweetass custom gnome parking pass, made by my sweetass scrapbooking wife (oh yeah, I said it.)
We were welcomed to camp by this big boy and his nearly identical mate. I don't remember their names but they were as gentle as can be. In the picture Ole' Boy is 'bout to swipe some of Cooper's food on-account of him being so good at being sneaky.
Our Day 1 plan was to: A.) set up camp B.) eat lunch C.) ride. In our excitement to get gnome hunting we forgot B and went straight to C. We headed out to take on some wonderfully varied, sometimes tricky and always invigorating trail. Our initial route took us up Lower Glen to the aptly named Swamp Cut and then to Yellowjacket before arriving at the widely recommended Sidewinder.
Lower Glen, along with the other lowland trails at Levis reminded me a lot of the twisty, rooty hardpack dirt of Sugarbottom. Swamp Cut takes roots to a whole other level though. Sometimes the roots are the trail. Where the roots subside the trail builders have patched in corduroy, which is a method for making chronically wet trail ridable by using wood as an embedded bridge of sorts.
They have all sorts of boardwalks and bridges. All of them were sturdy and fun to ride.
Those two pictures lifted from here.
The thing I remember most about Yellowjacket is the killer climb at the end. It doesn’t get extremely steep, but it is very long and had me huffing good by the time we reached the top. Sidewinder, what to say about Sidewinder? Don't look down. Its not too technical, with only a few rocks and some sand, but it raises the pucker all the same.
Not us, video lifted from Tou Yube
The bridge toward the end kinda appears outta nowhere, but its nice and wide as well as short. No freakout zone.
My pal Corey made it neatly through all the sketchy, exposed stuff only to have a tree jump out in front of him and take him down on the backside of the ‘Winder. Mischievous gnomes perhaps?
We headed back toward the campground on Upper, Middle and Lower Hermosa. Hermosa featured some swoopy, highly banked downhilll switchbacks filled with sand and roots. They were perfectly spaced and shaped for some natural wall-riding(ish) action. Matt coined the term “switchpipe” to reflect the section's halfpipe nature. It was ridiculous fun.
There's a fair amount of sand at Levis. On the uphills it steals your spirit, on downhill turns it can hug your front tire and send you scrambling off the front, or side, of your bike. I had a couple of decent sand saves including one that seemed to last 10 minutes. After washing out in the sand I scrambled off the falling bike but it wasn't done with me yet. The bike chased me down the hill while I hopped, skipped and jumped around to keep my balance. Heck, I even ducked a limb in mid save. Ninja.
After getting back to camp we hemmed and hawed vigorously about going out again or doing the planned group nightride. Most opted for naught, but Matt did head off into the dark, headlights blazin'. He said the Hermosa switchpipe was something else at night. We chose to play it safe and live to fight another day. 7.5 miles, 800 feet of climbing. It doesn't sound like much, but it was highly satisfying none-the-less.
I shouldn't be allowed to have this much fun.
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