Rock Bottom: Croatan
Croatan National Forest, May 28-30, 2021
Memorial Day weekend, 2021: I ventured to the southeastern corner of North Carolina for a bike trip with my friends Kaelan, Kofi, and Cole. The motivating force behind this trip was our collective frustration with work commitments that prevented us from doing a week-long bike adventure/brewery tour in Vermont. After weeks of planning (and arguing), we settled on the Croatan Gravel Vanish, a ~116 mile route in the only true coastal forest on the east coast. You would think a route with a name that calls to mind settlers lost in the wilderness would discourage us. It didn't, but it certainly foreshadowed some misfortune to come on this trip.
Kaelan and Kofi left from Richmond, Virginia and arrived at our campsite, Oyster Point, well ahead of Cole and me, who were leaving from D.C.. As we drove through rural North Carolina, they warned us that the campsite was plagued by mosquitos. They were hiding in their tents, only able to brave the air outside the thin mesh walls for a few minutes before returning to safety. Because of traffic, we didn't arrive until after midnight, leaving them alone in this condition for hours. Oh, and the forecast for the weekend was constant rain. We were off to a great start.
Oyster Point: Cole Playing with lighter fluid in his briefs
Despite the bad omens, we woke up to a beautiful day, packed our bikes, and fueled up with Waffle House; by far the fanciest option on the highway between Oyster Point and New Bern, NC.. All of us being relative rookies, it took as a while to get started, which contributed to that misfortune I mentioned earlier.
We rolled out of New Bern into suburbs and then farmland. Admittedly, if you are looking for spectacular surroundings, this route is does not have that. It is completely flat, but the endless sand roads and deep green forest have their own sort of unassuming beauty. The local community seems rather unconcerned with the bikepacking route and outdoor tourism in general. The fact that it is not a major destination added to the experience however. We all agreed it was quite cool to view the rural community from a bicycle. It was a window into a sleepy southern lifestyle very different than that of D.C., or even Richmond for that matter.
We finally entered Croatan National Forest. Internally, I was worried about our slow pace, but the woods were beautiful and we had reggae playing from a bluetooth speaker strapped to Kaelan's handlebars. The vibes were good. We continued like this for a while, with only a soggy swamp crossing and a brief railroad ride to break up the endless gravel/sand roads. Anywhere outside of the shade was hot as fire.
We emerged from the woods and made a pit stop at a gas station, buying Gatorade and Icee's. We poured cups of ice water on ourselves, rewarding ourselves with a quick reprieve from the brutal heat. I stashed some beer and ice in my fork bags as well, anticipating our arrival at a beach campsite within a few hours.
From here we had to ride along a section of highway, by far the least pleasant part of the route. Enormous pickup trucks roared past us as we pedaled along the shoulder, and eventually we had to make a risky left across multiple lanes during a break in the traffic to get to the other side. The latter half of the day held a good amount of road riding and we spread out, riding at our own paces. We passed several other riders, doing the route in the opposite direction as us. It is always inspiring to see other people getting after it (and fun to check out their rigs)!
Eventually, we turned back into the woods briefly and came out onto the bay. I cracked one of my beers and can of grape leaves, sat down at a picnic table, and admired what appeared to be the perfect campsite. You could feel a cool breeze blowing in off the water, and as dusty and as sweaty as we were, we could not resist the temptation of swimming. We stripped down, waded into the bay, and realized it was ankle deep for hundreds of feet. We sat down in the water and relaxed for a moment. The water was so shallow that I was literally able to lay on my back on the sandbar and gaze off into the clouds above us.
After a healthy amount of chilling out and goofing off, it was time to evaluate our options for the rest of the day. The tranquil surroundings were disturbed by two harsh realizations. This campsite had zero water, and we were 20 miles away from the midpoint of the route, which meant leaving close to 90 miles for the next day if we chose to camp here. As much as we wished we could stay here in our new oasis, we decided we had no option other than continuing on.
At this point, our lack of planning and lost time due to constant hijinks started to catch up with us. First, we were no longer on gravel roads. We had 20 miles of the Neusiok Trail ahead of us, and the first section consisted mostly of sand too deep to ride in, a fact we were completely oblivious to until we had to trudge through it, schlepping our loaded bikes through deep sand pits, up eroded banks, and over huge pieces of driftwood. It was not all bad however. Kofi's three inch tires gave him an advantage here, and he was able to ride right along the water on the firmer sand, which made for some pretty spectacular shots on the GoPro.
It was about 5:00 PM at this point, so I started to worry that we would not even make it to the midpoint campground at our current pace. The trail entered the woods again and became solid single track, but as soon as we started making progress, Kaelan's derailleur malfunctioned and he couldn't shift. I managed to fix it with my Leatherman, but things were trending towards frustrating and stressful.
We started looking for shelters, which supposedly had water pumps, because at this point we just needed to stop for the night. This involved a lengthy detour from the main trail on an overgrown, swampy, trail. After a good amount of hike-a-bike through stinging nettles and thorny vines grabbing at our bare legs, we made it to the shelter. I arrived first and my stomach dropped. There was no water pump. Instead there was a sign that stated the rangers had removed it several years back. Kaelan, Cole, and Kofi entered the camp, Kaelan clutching his wrist. He had fallen and re-injured it, having just hurt it a month earlier in a bike crash. It was starting to get dark and heavy raindrops started to fall, pelting us through the tree cover. Morale was taking a beating. We decided the safest course of action would be to backtrack to the main roads and get out of the woods.
We escaped the swamp to a local church and refilled our water. Praise Be! A lesson passed on to me from my dad: local churches always have a water spicket, and they save you from venturing onto private property, which can be risky if you are unfamiliar with an area.
We circled back down the gravel road towards the beach campsite and Park Rangers turned us away, telling us the beach site was closed and that we should return to the swamp shelter via the single track we had just came from. Our previous low point, discovering the shelter in the swamp had no water, felt like distant memory. Even though we were quite literally out of the woods, we now truly had no place to camp. These instructions from the park rangers were frustrating, and given all we had been through over last couple hours, they felt completely unsafe. We bit our tongues though. They had just charged some other young people camping on the beach with trespassing, so at least we avoided legal trouble. Defeated, we decided the best course of action was to ride 20 miles on paved roads towards the midpoint of the route and our original campground, Oyster Point.
This was a contentious decision, because it was undoubtedly pretty dangerous to ride on the main roads at night with pick-ups flying by and our bike lights running out out of battery. Surviving on fumes, we ground out the final miles. To give you an idea of the state we were in, I was seeing dark shapes run across the road in front of me and I have no idea whether they were simply stray cats, evil omens, or hallucinations. During a break, Kaelan asked us if we were seeing all of the yellow animal eyes in the ditches that ran along the sides of the road. To this day, I have no idea if what we saw was real or a product of our exhaustion. Fast forwarding, we made it to Oyster Point shortly before midnight, delirious and hopes of a fun night around a campfire dashed. We ate, set up our tents, and immediately went to sleep, in the exact same place we had camped the night before.
Day Two:
The next morning we strategized. Unfortunately Kaelan was unable to ride because of his wrist injury from the night before. Cole, Kofi, and I, determined to finish the route, left our gear and bags at the campground and continued on. The weather was overcast and misty, and our spirits were not quite as high as they had been the day before.
The second day a slog. However, there were still some high points. We stopped at a restaurant for an early lunch. The route also took us onto a jeep road that was deep sand rather than gravel. While it was slow and difficult, it was some solid type two fun. I cranked heavy metal in my headphones and powered through it.
Kaelan called to tell us the campground host was very unhappy that we had not checked out of our site yet. He tried to explain our situation to her, that he was waiting on us to get to our cars so we could pack up the site and pick him up, but she maintained that we needed to leave. Realizing we needed to step on the gas, Cole and I decided to leave Kofi since his heavier hard tail plus bike was slower than ours and we could not afford to wait up at this point.
When we finally exited the national forest, a sense of accomplishment (and relief) washed over me. We had severely underestimated this route. We made quick work of the tarmac in the Bern Suburbs loaded our bikes onto the cars. I drove back into the forest to get Kofi and Cole drove back to Oyster Point to get Kaelan.
Gallon jugs of sweet tea and hush puppies to the dome
We reconvened at last and treated ourselves to some fried chicken and barbecue. We sat down in Smithfield and ordered more food than we could eat. We spent the rest of the night driving to the Outer Banks and the next day getting some well deserved R&R on the beach.
Parting Thoughts (and lessons learned): This route was MUCH more difficult than I expected. Because it is flat, we expected this route to be chill and easy which was just not the case. First of all, when there are no climbs, there are no descents, so your legs never get a rest. You are constantly spinning. A seemingly obvious concept, but we did not even think about this until we had finished and were pondering why this route was so much harder than we expected. Additionally, the Neusiok Trail was way harder than the Bikepacking.com article indicates: https://bikepacking.com/routes/croatan-gravel-vanish/. Those guys are obviously strong riders but their 4/10 difficulty rating on this route is very humbling! Regardless, with some better planning and an earlier start, things may have turned out different for us. This route is a departure from most of the other popular cycling destinations in the Mid-Atlantic, and for that reason, it is must do for anyone looking to do an interesting bikepacking overnighter in the region.
