CAROLINA ON MY MIND

After rolling through the Smoky Mountain National Park, I wandered into the Nantahala National Forest in North Carolina to get some miles under my bike!


The National Forest has Four total different loops... They are:
The Thompson Loop
The Mouse Branch Loop
The Tsali Trail Right Loop
The Tsali Trail Left Loop

The Tsali (SAH-lee) trail system is a beautiful but heavily used set of single tracks that follows the shore of Fontana Lake. The Smoky Mountains provide magnificent panoramas across the lake to the north. The trails are well marked, so navigation should not be a problem.

Here is the history:
The Tsali Recreation Area is named for a Cherokee man who hid in this area in 1838. The US Government had ordered the Cherokees to move to Oklahoma--a tragic removal that's known as "The Trail of Tears". Exasperated by the brutality to his family, Tsali and others managed to escape to these mountains.

Tsali was coaxed to surrender by a promise to allow the others to remain in the area. Tsali voluntarily came forward as a sacrifice for his people. As a result, he, his brother, and two older sons were shot and killed.

Today the Eastern Band of the Cherokee live on ancestral Cherokee land about 12 air-miles east of the Tsali Recreation Area.

Elevation is up to 2040'.... Bring your lungs!!! :)

The trails alternate between horses and mountain biking depending on the day...


I have heard that the best trail is the Tsali loops, but I ended up there on a Tuesday. I choose the Mouse Loop. After a mile or so, I stopped to take a quick snap of my bike with mountains in the background -


The single track was great! Portions of the trail had HUGE dropoffs down the mountain if you screwed up and rode too wide or off the singletrack.






For the most part, the trail was really non-technical and had few ridable obstacles. There were a number of trees that had fallen over the trail and made it impassable (requiring the rider to dismount and pick the bike up and hop over the tree). No biggie, but did impact the flow of the ride.

The highlight of the trail was:


The MouseBranch Overlook added on a couple miles of trail to bring the total mileage to around 12 miles. Otherwise, the mouse loop ends up coming in at just over 8 miles. The view from the Mouse Branch Overlook was AWESOME!




I hope to sometime ride the entire trail system!