The Unofficial Runs (with GPS files)

So, here it is, less than 12 hours after the start of sign-us for the official MOTD events, and some of the drives are already full. I know that for some, this means foot shuffling and muttering under your breath. But for others, well, it's just a reminder that there's a truck-ton of great driving in the area that needn't be done in a long caravan. Go find fun.

Where? Here, let me point you in the first of the few things.

1. Go have Lunch at Lynn's Place. Just don't have the taco salad.

• Head out Hellbender.
• Connect to Tapoco Road.
• Take Santeetlah Road, and climb to the top.
• Take a break, soak up the sights, take and post a Selfie.
• Head out Cherohala to the rest stop.
• Repeat selfie.
• Head to Lynn's.
• Grubb up.

If you head out at a decent hour, you can make it there for a nice late lunch. GPS file is here.

If you're running late in the morning or doing something else, head to Lynn's first for an early lunch, and then do the loop in reverse. There's a separate GPS file for that, here.

if you haven't been up Santeetlah, I have video of it [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfB0j_ZCHgE"]here[/ame].


2. Make the Wayah Road / Moonshiner Loop.

• Head out Hellbender.
• Connect to Tapoco Road.
• Swing around the Santeetlah loop, west of the lake.
• Scoot on through Wayah Road.
• Make a couple of lefts, and you're on Moonshiner.
• Head back to Fontana.

This is a decent loop to do when you have some other event that you're trying to work around. There's a GPS for this route here, and another one here for doing the route in reverse. Wayah it worth doing both ways, IMHO.

And if you don't know the magic of Wayah, I have video of it, [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoNz7YL6NOI"]here[/ame].


3. Make the Mother of All Drives, Blimey's Double Peak, aka The Infinity Loop.

So, here's the deal with this one. Doing the Double Peak is a full day of driving. And it's not one you do on Saturday or Sunday -- cyclists take to some of these same roads, and it's just not as much fun to do the DP when there are scores of cyclist ooh'ing and ah'ing and telling you how cute you are.

And I said it take a long time, right? Yeah, it's a long one. You'll damn near clip South Carolina. There's a great little brewery stop for lunch, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and it makes for a decent reward. You can certainly fill and bring me a growler as thanks for pointing this out.

• Head out Hellbender.
• Connect to Tapoco Road.
• Do the Santeetlah loop, west of the lake.
• Scoot on down Wayah Road.
• Aim for Ellijay Road.
• Soak up Cullowhee Mountain Road. It kicks a lot of ass.
• Stop for lunch at the Sapphine Mountain Brewing Company.
• Head up North Carolina 281.
• Head back down Ellijay Road. This is the only part that you'll take in both directions.
• Connect to Moonshiner.
• Head back to Fontana, and gas up along the way.

If you're planning to start early and know that a drive this long ins't an issue, here's the standard route file, as described above. If you are worried about time, consider doing this backwards, aka the Reverse DP -- I have a separate file of that, here. If you really are running late, you can scoop back faster via Moonshiner, vice Wayah and the other stuff. Less twisties, but hey, it happens.

Alright -- what did I miss?

 

Crap -- I know. Here's a single zip file with all of the GPS / Google Earth files in one.

Premature postulation.

 

I guess that's fair; I haven't even bothered with a signature block yet.