My Best Bike Stories - Part 3 - Tornado Alley

Tornado Alley - 2000

On Memorial Day Weekend DaMom (at the time she was DaWife) and I went to Pennsylvania for a camping trip with a bunch of our friends from college. We had been in the working world for a couple of years and this was the first time we had all gotten together since college. The State Park we were camping at supposedly had a great reputation for quality mountain biking trails which was why we were there.

On Saturday only 3 of the 7 of us decided to go out in search of trails. Apparently I intimidated the others (I don't get it). We stopped by the ranger station first to get a map and ask what were best novice trails (D. and J.W. were afraid I'd leave them in the dust. Again what's with the intimidation). The Ranger pointed us in the direction of the trails on the southern side of the mountain where there were ample service roads to get back out of the woods if needed (or desired). The only indication to the trail conditions was a passing mention of "there are some trees down". Being from New England and understanding that every winter knocks trees down and it take a while to clear them in the woods, it never occurred to me that it would mean more than climbing over a couple of logs with bikes. Not a big deal.

We left the ranger station feeling prepared and ready for a good day of riding. J.W. and I had our Camelbaks on loaded up with gear, food and water. I had my full suspension bike (FSB) and D. had my old FSB both tipping the scales around 30lbs each and J.W. had a lighter hardtail.

We started down a nice twisting, fast, fire road that stopped at a downed tree. We hike over the mammoth timber and continue down some single track for ways. We come to a section of downed trees, climb over them and continue on. Then we come to more downed trees and wondering what the heck is going on. The trees looked as if loggers had come through dropping trees for a new road and never cleaned up the mess. All of the trees had no vegetation and were gray, so I knew this devastation wasn't recent but couldn't understand what happened.

In my life I've seen a lot of local woods be clear cut for the construction of mini-malls, McMansions, and to circumvent a conservation commission ruling that wouldn't allow more than X number of acres to be cleared at one time (he got the ~25 acres clearcut the week before the ruling went into effect and now 20+ years later that parcel still sits vacant). So I naturally thought some bonehead developer started dropping trees and was halted by something; cash flow, the court, or public outcry.

We lost any and all signs of a trail and start hiking the edges of the downed tree line trying to find one. After two horrendous hours of hiking with bikes, we finally found a fire road that is in service. We then start the process of figuring out "where the hell are we" and ride a couple of miles back to the ranger station.

We're all PO'd and want to know why so many trees are down. We walk into the ranger station and ask the same green shirted knucklehead what happened to the forest. His response was one for the record books; "What? Trees down?.............. OH YEAH! We had a tornado come through here last year......... Sorry 'bout that."

Gee thanks!

g