The oldest mountains in the world?

Yesterday morning Mary(she was planning on hanging out in the car while we were out)Jordy, Nathan and I took the recently revived Montero 55 miles east of town to The Uwharrie National forest for some trail riding and general adventure in the Uwharrie National forest. It is strange to travel east towards the coastal plain and run in to the risers that come up around a little bit more than a thousand feet above sea level. We geared up and started our ride from the parking lot to the Supertree loop, Nathan was on his geared cyclo cross bike and the new grease in his recently the night before repacked rear hub was giving his paws a bit of a sticky problem. Once that was checked out we took off down the trail and headed for the Keowee loop on the other side. I had a clear vision of these rolling hills being the oldest mountains in the world when I noticed on the top of one of the last climbs we made in that direction off to the left on top of a hill was a deposit of sharded white, pink and gray crystal. I was so interested by what this debris feild appeared to be that I left the bike and walked up for closer inspection. Imagine that the top of the hill was covered in crystal from the size of an average oven to the size of a pea and everything in between. It was clean and placed precisely by hundreds of millions of years of erosion down to the actaul core anchor of the original high mountain that one day loomed way above where I was standing now. I took some pictures of this natural scene but later in the ride while setting up for a trail shot I accidently erased my work. Note to self: NEVER MAKE ELECTRICAL EDITTING DECISIONS WHILE ON THE TRAIL> with 2gig of memory why would I, other than misguided compulsion. I picked up a 50cent size piece of this mountains original center core and we rode on.

After getting to the end of the Keowee we decided to push back up what we just descended and ride backwards towards where we came from. We ran into a group ride coming towards us and I told Jordan if we hurry we can see then back at the camp. We did run in to them but it was as they came back around figure 8 style up the road after Keowee to the juncture where we were about to get back on SuperTree. The leader of their tribe asked us if we wanted to see a new something off Supertree that they said was an even cut that stays inside and is really fun. One fellow spoke up and said that we should know that it was not a built trail but a fire road. Ha ha, it was a fun new thing out there, really fast and flowy with a few rocky sections and little bridges. That new hooked back up at the end of the Supertree and then we said our goodbyes and headed out.

On the way home we stopped in Badin for a swim, it was cold and quite something. My kid swam on New Year's day for over 20 minutes in the same spot, I do not know how she did it. I was in for less than 4minutes and I felt the cold in my hands until I ate dinner later that night.

Here is a film of Nate attempting a cyclo cross crossing of a little creek. Earlier off film he cleaned it which gave us the inspiration to make this little film....