What Goes Down - Must Go Up!

 Lesson learned today: access roads are not necessarily easier!

Starting at the Birch Mountain Lot, I thought I would get more familiar with the park and start with the "easy" access roads for the ascent. Hah!

I passed by an old log cabin and the dam remnants and enjoyed the relatively mild ups and downs of the access road up until the stairway to nowhere.

The next stretch was a long non-stop climb and...

...I was happy to finally see single track at this intersection. I went straight ahead and the climb continued!

The black square on the map indicates approximately where I had to stop because my chain got jammed - bummer! It took me 10 minutes or so just to get the damn thing back working CUZ  THE MOSQUITOS WERE EATING ME ALIVE!!

Well fortunately there was just a bit more of an uphill to the lookout point and the ride back down the Black Trail ("DOT") was non-stop fun!