October Trip 8-11, Iron Mountains, VA

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GarnerFJ40

GarnerFJ40

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Location
Garner, NC
All,

October's trip is closely approaching (less than 2 weeks!) , and I'll be leading a small group up to the Iron Mountains, Mt. Rogers Area in southwestern Virginia. I personally have never been up there, but it has a lot of potential, and I'd like to go up and explore a little. Trip is still in the planning phase, but if you're up for an adventure, I'll take a small group up.

Mostly forest road exploring, a really cool campsites, and a few other places of interest. This trip is going to be similar to the style of Hurricane Creek, as campsites might be booked up for the leaf season, and we'll try and move each day. This trip will go until Monday, but you can peel off whenever. Now, meeting up mid trip might be a little hard, so try and plan on being there Friday.

Meetup is tentatively going to be in West Jefferson at New River Brewing and Eatery on Friday October 8th at 1pm.

Who's in?

1. GarnerFJ40
2. QsLC75
3. NC LX
4. JamesUrq (possible)
5.
6.
7.
8.
 
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I may be interested. What’s your thoughts on my 100 pulling my Adventure trailer on these trails ?
 
Quentin you shouldn't have any issues on the roads/trails I'm planning, but there could be some exploration of potential open Forest Roads that could be not as well used. I wouldn't let it persuade you against bringing it! We can always make adjustments as we go if we do manage to encounter something!
 
I've been wanting to go back up there since last time we went up that way. Super cool trails. And one of the best "Dark Sky" locations around. See that dark blue spot on this map?


Untitled.webp
 
Crap! Got a concert that weekend. And already took time off in October for upstate parkway ride. Have fun!
 
cruiser4life said:
Cool link, thanks for sharing, now I need my 45 minutes back...
Click to expand...
45 minutes to start.... but then you go down the evil internet death spiral!!!

  1. Realize you live in an area with terrible light pollution
  2. Scan the country and realize sooo much of the middle is basically light pollution free!
  3. Zoom into the darkest spots
  4. Hit Zillow to see just what you could get
  5. Find some crazy amazing 50 acre ranch that's cheaper than your house
  6. Spend 30 minutes looking at other places just like it saying "honey come look at this place!"
  7. Realize there's a reason nobody lives there when you look for the closest stores of any kind...
  8. Look for an Air Bnb to rent instead just to "see what it's like there"
  9. Spend 30 minutes finding the perfect mountain house with a jacuzzi
  10. Wife suggests you get a bigger place and invite friends
  11. Another 30 minutes to find the one that will fit 8.
  12. Grab the calendar and ask the wife what weekend works for her.....
  13. Realize that you're basically booked solid for the rest of the year
  14. Get frustrated and go back to looking at Land Cruisers.
 
jamesurq said:
45 minutes to start.... but then you go down the evil internet death spiral!!!

  1. Realize you live in an area with terrible light pollution
  2. Scan the country and realize sooo much of the middle is basically light pollution free!
  3. Zoom into the darkest spots
  4. Hit Zillow to see just what you could get
  5. Find some crazy amazing 50 acre ranch that's cheaper than your house
  6. Spend 30 minutes looking at other places just like it saying "honey come look at this place!"
  7. Realize there's a reason nobody lives there when you look for the closest stores of any kind...
  8. Look for an Air Bnb to rent instead just to "see what it's like there"
  9. Spend 30 minutes finding the perfect mountain house with a jacuzzi
  10. Wife suggests you get a bigger place and invite friends
  11. Another 30 minutes to find the one that will fit 8.
  12. Grab the calendar and ask the wife what weekend works for her.....
  13. Realize that you're basically booked solid for the rest of the year
  14. Get frustrated and go back to looking at Land Cruisers.
Click to expand...

@cruiser4life is way ahead of you on that!!
 
I am in. Driving down either part way Thursday or starting early Friday.
 
jamesurq said:
45 minutes to start.... but then you go down the evil internet death spiral!!!

  1. Realize you live in an area with terrible light pollution
  2. Scan the country and realize sooo much of the middle is basically light pollution free!
  3. Zoom into the darkest spots
  4. Hit Zillow to see just what you could get
  5. Find some crazy amazing 50 acre ranch that's cheaper than your house
  6. Spend 30 minutes looking at other places just like it saying "honey come look at this place!"
  7. Realize there's a reason nobody lives there when you look for the closest stores of any kind...
  8. Look for an Air Bnb to rent instead just to "see what it's like there"
  9. Spend 30 minutes finding the perfect mountain house with a jacuzzi
  10. Wife suggests you get a bigger place and invite friends
  11. Another 30 minutes to find the one that will fit 8.
  12. Grab the calendar and ask the wife what weekend works for her.....
  13. Realize that you're basically booked solid for the rest of the year
  14. Get frustrated and go back to looking at Land Cruisers.
Click to expand...
You need to get out more :)

In regard to the 50 acres for less than your house. We found 20 for much less than half of an independent appraisal we had done, on a short sale. The deals are out there, it just takes time searching. I bought our mountain property the same way before I met Heather. Currently worth aprox 3X what I paid for it 13 years ago.
 
Need some more deets before I commit.
 
One of the darker, more protected from light pollution, areas for star watching on the East Coast.

Should be great leaf colors also at this time.
 
Alright, since we're a few days out, I'm going to say who's in is in and no one else is joining up. For planning purposes, I'm closing out the signup!
 
Looking forward to your trip report and info on trails you end up doing. Seems like a fun place to go check out
 
It was a great time, lots of hard earned recon that was epic! We will plan to go up there again soon, there are many very very picturesque camping spots and the wheeling was amazing.

Had a couple of issues with the 60 - which I’m sure the other two will have some fun pics of :)

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ED0F1F9D-CA96-4D18-B690-61D05FC8EE02.png
 
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Man, what a great trip!

QsLC75 and NC LX had to pull out last minute, but I was honored to spend the weekend with jamesurq and jfz80 (and Ella!)!

Friday meetup was in Galax, at Creek Bottom Brewing, which had great beer and food to kick off the trip. We spent most of the day Friday traversing forest roads in Mount Rogers Rec Area, which is in the Iron Mountains and in the overall Jefferson National Forest system. Ran across a really cool old iron furnace (Noble Furnace) on the way.

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After not deciding on any of the "side of the road" type campsites, one Forest Campsite was closed, and it was getting late so we decided to high tail it to our first campsite for Friday night. We're not listing it by name (I did originally), but you can do some research based on the pictures, and general area) and figure it out. Managed to see some stars, but only in the wee morning pee times :) But luckily it didn't rain all weekend which was the forecast.

1634076671485.webp


Saturday was all exploratory, we did some more forest roads, checked out a waterfall that was only 1/4 mile away from the road :), tried to reach a lookout area but couldn't find a drive up area (only hike), and returned to explore our campsite area a little more.

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James and Jason had work on Monday, so we decided to kill the stay until Monday which was good because we had a folly of events occur as we were leaving. My dog Jade managed to step on the keys in the truck and lock herself in, which James and Jason managed to press the fob button with a tent pole as I distracted her on the other side of the truck.

Then, we had noticed that James' front driver wheel was extremely loose on the way home, so we made a grocery store HAMOM and tightened up knuckle studs, which I didn't even take pictures of!
 
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