In recent years we have embraced the tradition of spending the weekends of late October and early November chasing fall color as it makes its way through our favorite foliage hotspots. These adventures have included absolutely incredible days on our Garneau Steeple CX/do everything bikes, some of which are featured under the “Fall” tag on the Journal. This past weekend we were aiming to add to those memories with another trip up to the Gunks and the mostly empty trails around Lake Awosting.

Unfortunately the weather didn’t entirely cooperate with our plans. Saturday’s conditions were brutal with only those brave enough to race HPCX (not me!) venturing outside. So we pinned our hopes on Sunday when the forecast called for partly cloudy skies and temperatures pushing above 50 degrees. Alas this forecast proved optimistic as there was dense cloud cover all day and a chilly wind that forced extra caution on the various water crossings we encountered. On the bright side this insured that we saw barely anyone on the trails during our ride as we hung to the more remote stretches of the Park.

As for fall color: the cloud cover didn’t do any favors and unfortunately Saturday’s storm hit the park hard enough that many of the ridge-line trails were covered in a sea of red and orange leaves that would have looked perfect on the trees. But even if the color was a bit lacking those classic Shawangunk views were as beautiful as ever:

In the end even if the weather didn’t cooperate with our search for that perfect fall color it was still another imminently memorable day on the bike. With winter looming just over the horizon we’ll take as many days like today as possible - though hopefully we will have one or two more days where some blue sky days line up with the fall color creeping South toward New York City.