Croft State Natural Area

Today after work I headed the opposite direction as I did on Tuesday, east towards Spartanburg, SC.  I rode at Southside Park in Croft State Natural Area.  Croft is a former Army training base, last in use during the WWII era.  The local rumors say not to stray from the trails as there is unexploded ordinance throughout the park.  While this is sort of hard to believe, I stuck to the trails as usual.

A bridge crossing early in the ride.

I had a map of the trails but had never found a recommendation on a specific route.  There is a trail called the Southside Loop that encircles the entire Southside Park, I figured it would be a straight forward way to tour the park.  There were no other bikers in the parking area to talk to, so I headed off.

The route was all single track.  There was not much elevation change throughout the whole ride.  The trail wove through forested areas and was rooty, very much so in some places, with some rockiness..  Markers nailed to trails confirmed I was staying on the Southside Trail as opposed to riding one of the trails that cut through the center of the park.

Much of the trail was sandy.

The whole way around the 10 mile loop I only saw one other mountain biker.  Actually, he was the only other person I saw the whole time at the park.  It seemed pretty abandoned on a Thursday evening.  At an information kiosk I read the park contains ~7,500 acres.  So maybe there were other land users out there and we just didn't cross paths.

The sections by the river were interesting,

twisty trail through lush vegetation.

It was a good ride in the 94 degree heat.  Once again, I wouldn't come down from up north just to ride here, but it's a good stop if in the area.  I think if I had only one day to ride and had to choose between Croft and Paris Mountain, I would choose Paris.  It seemed more interesting due to the elevation changes and rockiness.

Plenty of fungus at Croft too.