Escape Velocity: Cooper's Gap

This past weekend my friend Jon and I were planning on going up to ride Cooper's Gap. Cooper's Gap is located in Rothrock State Forest in PA and is comprised of about 35 to 45 miles of some of the best single track on the East coast. The trail system was recently designated as an IMBA Epic and is the location for several XC and Endurance races I plan on doing this season. The problem I faced was that Jon, while a much better technical rider than me, was not ready for the kind of all day epic this early in the season that would be required to show him everything I wanted to show him. With that in mind, I remembered a sweet campsite accessible only by foot or bike and proposed that we try bikepacking out there. Not surprisingly, having just received the Revelate Designs frame and saddlebags he had ordered a few weeks ago, Jon was up for it.

The plan was to leave a bit early from work at Earl's Bicycle Store on Saturday and head up there with enough time to get about 20 miles in, then camp out at a really scenic campsite I had found at the end of Beautiful Trail. Here's a quick tip about trail signage. If there is a sign on a fairly remote trail that says "view" and points with an arrow off the trail, go check it out, you'll rarely be disappointed.

View

I made up a route on a Purple Lizard Map, but it was mainly a suggestion not a rigid plan. I just wanted to remember which direction to ride certain trails in, having been out here only twice before and only once without course markers.

Note the very precise and professional language.

So we had a plan and got all of our gear tuned up the night before. Rylan probably would have come with us, but his wife wanted to go ride this weekend and that was an opportunity he could not pass up. We all stayed a little late on Friday night and got the rigs ready.

Bike Shop Work Party!

I got a new Brooks B17 for my El Mariachi Ti on the same shipment as Jon's bags, so I mounted that up and hoped for the best. My last Brooks saddle took a long time to break in so I was prepared for a sore butt when we got back on Sunday, but my fears turned out to be unfounded.

Pictured: The Best Saddle in the Universe

Midday Saturday we left the shop for Cooper's Gap. We stopped and got some supplies along the way and then got to riding. When we arrived, quickly got our rigs loaded up and off we went! The first trail we took was a short connector to Dutch Alvin Trail which we rode from the top down. I wanted to give Jon a chance to get a feel for riding a loaded bike on single track. Dutch Alvin is very buffed out and has a lot of twists and turns but not a ton of rocks or super technical roots so I thought it would be a good chance for him to make the adjustment. He was pretty surprised at the trail. Most of his PA trail riding was done in Bald Eagle State Forest which has a decidedly more technical and primitive character, so to find something so smooth and fast was nice change. After that though, we rode back up the gravel road to where the car was parked and ducked into Peep Trail, which promptly reminded him we were indeed still in PA.

A weeeee bit sketchy.

 Peep trail was a pretty gnarly climb and I walked a lot of the last section the last time I was out there on my singlespeed. With gears, it was all much less difficult even though my bike probably weighed 3 times as much. Peep Trail is a pretty technical climb, and a really fun descent as we would find out later in the day. At the top we pedaled a little further up to the vista on Kettle Road and took a break to have a snack while I went over the importance of eating on long rides.

Kettle Road Vista

After we ate, we went up and over the ridge to Sassafras Trail and we took that to the top of the ridge. We decided to take the trail on the left when it split and ended up on a pretty crazy steep downhill section. It would have been a lot more fun on an unloaded, much more slack geometry bike. There was a strong smell of hot brake pads when we got to the bottom. It was definitely worth it though because it spit us out at what is probably my favorite trail in PA right now, Sassafras Extension. Sassafras Extension rips and swoops and dives through the forest, eventually bringing you down to a small stream, which you cross back and forth over a few times. Punctuated with a few rooty sections to keep you on your toes, this trail is chock full of flow and leaves me grinning ear to ear every time I ride it. The ferns haven't grown up yet, but once they do this trail is just incredibly beautiful. I wish I had picutres, but I'm always too in the zone to even think about stopping and taking any. I'll have to borrow a go pro camera sometime or something.

After a rip of a descent, climbed back up to the car via Shittaka Trail and took the high route up to Kettle Road so we could ride down Peep Trail. We stopped at the car to grab some bug spray. If you are ever in Cooper's Gap area, bring bug spray that repels ticks! Cooper's Gap has tons of them. We headed out after that to that connector trail we used to get to Dutch Alvin, but instead this time we bombed down into Lingle Valley Trail. Talk about a rush! That trail is straight up crazy. So technical of a decent, but fast and fun. Lots of steep sections and rocks, roots, skinnies, and insanity. We rode it to Bear Gap Trail. There was a lot of hike a bike here. We were both on 1x10 drivetrains and the bikes were starting to feel a little heavier at this point. We hiked up bear gap and then rode all of Chicken Peter Trail out to Conklin Road. Chicken Peter Trail is a really neat trail, it starts off on the first half being a pretty smooth and fast trail. The second half is a lot of big slabs of rock that are somewhat technical but pretty cool to ride. At the end of that we crossed Conklin Road to Beautiful Trail, which again is rocky and techy and we rode that out to the aforementioned "View" trail marker. We hike-a-biked up there where our campsite waited.

We have arrived.

Darkness settled in quickly as we were setting up camp. Jon was stoked to try out his new Vargo titanium stove and cook up some ramen noodles.

Unpacking camp.

I got a camp fire going and put on some warmer clothes before setting up my sleeping arrangements and chowing down on a sandwich I had brought.

I got my bed ready for the night. the weather was nice, if a bit chilly in the evening and morning. My sleeping gear consisted of my NEMO 40 degree sleeping bag, my full camelback bladder as a pillow, my Static V inflatable sleeping pad, an old rain fly from a tent as a make shift bivvy sack all on top of an old shower curtain that served as my ground cloth.

Luxury.

You may notice the giant void to the left of my sleeping arrangement. That's a sheer cliff, so in a way, we were doing some bike mountaineering. You'll see it better in the pictures from the morning! We both ate and went to bed. I slept well.

In the morning we were up with the sun.

Shaking off that groggy morning "I just slept on a rock" feeling

Bears did not steal our bikes or our breakfast.

Pictured: A mess.

More mess.

Ahhhh, fire! It was so cold in the morning!

Jon was planning on having clif bars for breakfast, which wasn't going to work. So I shared one of my super secret energy cakes with him. I packed two just in case and it proved to be a wise move.

Super Secret Energy Cake: 660 calories

In the not so wise move category. Jon cooked his ramen the night before with unfiltered water, it remains to be seen if he boiled it (he doesn't think so) or if there will be consequences for this. Giardia is a son of a bitch...so I hope not. Good luck with that bud, hoping for the best here.

It was another beautiful spring day. We rode down Deer Tick Trail to the road and rode up Coopers Gap to the car and dropped off our bikepacking gear to hopefull get some light bike shred time in, but Jon's knee was acting up, so we cut things short after 20 morning miles. We rode SassyPig and Pig Pile trail and then Flat Road Trail back to Sassafras Extension (again, it's that awesome) then back up Cooper's Gap Road again and called it a day.

Jon said he definitely wants to do more bikepacking. I knew he'd like it from the start, so I have another person to get out with now. Coming up soon we're going to do a fat-bike camping trip and Rylan will be coming along this time. This trip was just what I need to get my stoked up for the upcoming riding and bikepacking season. I can't wait to get back out there!