Jana and I headed out to Whitney State Forest, near Warrenton, this morning. We'd never been, and were looking for a crowd-free way to get a few hours of biking in. (Since buying mountain bikes a few summers back, we seem to have spent almost all of our time on the W&OD trail or the C&O canal towpath, which seemed like a bit of a waste of a bike.)

It was nice! The only other bikers we saw were in the parking lot, and leaving. They had determined that they weren't up for anything beyond the wide fire road, and told us that "we'd probably be OK". We started on the fire road (It's short... and pretty tame). After that, we started checking out the various trails that branch off of that road, and that's where the fun parts were. The area's small enough that you can't get lost, but big enough that you can probably burn a few hours following differnt options. We had never tried to deal with stream crossings of big logs before, so we did have a walk a few spots, but I'm sure that for anyone with real experience, it would have been a little underwhelming.

Anyway, we had fun, and I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to try something more interesting than a trail designed for road bikes, without getting in over their head. The best part was, even on a holiday weekend, there was nobody there (which is why we didn't go to Schaeffer Farms or Black Hill. It didn't seem like we'd do so well at a busier spot... Maybe next time...)

Anyone else been there?


aaron

Aaron,

Where is Whitney?

I've done Black Hills and Schaeffer Farms. Both are pretty good rides for me. Little Bennett can be fun as well, I work near there on Tues-Thurs, so its easy to take the bike out for an hour or so.

We were at Deep Creek over the weekend, so I decided to try Wisp. They have the trails graded, Green, Blue, Black etc. The only Green trail is Possum. The liftie at the top of Muskrat (Chair 1) kept saying that the trail off of Muskrat was "awesome". With the heavy rain on Saturday night, it was like ice in parts. I had trouble even crawling down some of the parts. It soon became apparent that I was in way over my head.

If you are ever in Garrett County, there are some great rides. Harrington Manor to Swallow Falls is one of my favorites. New Germany State Park has great trails as well, but be ready to earn your turns there, a long grind up, then a fun ride down.

Also, I noticed at Wisp that I was barely breaking a sweat, since the lift does all the work going up. It was nice to try, but for me, one and done.

Steve

Whitney is down about 10 minutes from Warrenton (when headed south, anyway). I think we basically took 15/29 to the bypass around Warrenton, and then followed 29 to "Lee's Ridge" road (which the directions said should have been "Lover's Lane". It's back off the dirt road there.

Here's the website: http://www.stateparks.com/whitney.html

It's really small, but I'm glad it's there.

I didn't know Wisp did lift-served mountain biking. We may give that a shot. you think it would have been over your head if it were drier? Is it not a good choice for people who aren't super-confident on their bikes yet?


aaron

Aaron,

Wisp seems to be for people trying to become downhill racers. Most of it it would be over my head without the rain. I just don't enjoy the rocks and roots anymore and some parts of the trails were too steep for my taste (OK, I'm a wimp). I think there are much nicer places to ride in western MD. But, some things you gotta try.

Steve

Give Conway-Robinson State Forest in Gainesville a try some time. It's similar, with esay grades, historic trails, and it does have one trail that's more technical than anything I found at Whitney.