This trip was one that I will not soon forget. We left on Thursday afternoon planning to do the Croatan Vanish out of New Bern, NC. Driving across I-40 my car started acting up so we decided that it may not be smart to drive 8 hrs from home. Brevard, NC was only about 30 miles away so that is where we landed. Ate at the Waffle House and looking at Google for a place to land for the night. Picked a campground and got the last spot. The friendly camp host came to tell us that we were in a site that cost double and insinuated we should leave but never came out and said it. So we slept there since we already had our tents out. We woke up pretty early the next morning and packed up before the camp host could come say anything to us. We then drove to Sycamore Cycles and sat in there until they opened. Thankfully they had coffee and it was really good. We walked around their shop a while and chatted with the guys. We decided to head to Dupont to ride a loop that Zack knew. After a little fidgeting with the Garmin we got the route loaded and headed the trailhead. It was a great 30 mile loop with just enough climbing to let us know we did something. We finished that mid-afternoon and were looking for a loop we could pack in on. So we drove back into town and went to The Hub to see what they might recommend. I bought a map, had one of the guys at the shop draw some arrows on it for a route and away we went. We were going to ride in about 10 miles and camp but I decided my legs were trash so we looked for a place to camp for the night. We drove out toward the start of our ride and couldn't find anything. Talked to a ranger and he confirmed everything was full. So we pulled in to the horse stables where we planned to start our ride anyway. Cooked dinner and decided after our experience the previous night to just sleep in the car. Temps dropped into the 30's and woke up with heavy frost on our bikes. We got up made breakfast, got packed, and hit the trail. Since we didn't do the first 10 miles the day before we had 2 sections to do. Right out of the gate we had a pretty serious climb which was great to get warmed up on a cold morning. About 2 miles up we made it to Buckhorn Gap which is what we were looking for. Double checked the map and hit the down hill. At the bottom we came to a junction that didn't look right. While looking at the map trying to figure out where we were I realized that my Etrex was gone. I had forgotten to zip the bag it was in. So we hiked back up the trail looking for it. Thankfully we found it laying in the middle of the trail. After we found it we rode back down to the junction we weren't sure about. We had taken the wrong trail. Instead of backtracking we found a hiking trail that put us back on route so we hiked the bikes back up to Clawhammer Rd. where we were supposed to be. After a little more climbing we came to the junction of Black Mtn and the Buckhorn Gap trail that we were supposed to take. The ride down Buckhorn Gap to South Mills River was nice and uneventful. We took South Mills river out to the forest rd and found a spot to set up camp. After setting up camp and eating a bite we took off on our now much lighter bikes to do a slightly more technical loop. We had a yet another solid climb up a forest rd to get to some pretty sweet single track. We rode Horse Cove Gap to Squirrel Gap which had some pretty sketchy sections on them with all the leaves being down. We made it back to camp and while we were cooking dinner our neighbors came over and invited us over to eat a low country boil they had going. We went over to be social and even though I didn't eat any of the low country boil, they had some avacado dip that I couldn't stay out of. I stayed and chatted with Jack and Amanda for a while and made use of their gas fire pit since their was a fire ban and we couldn't have one of our own. Had the best night sleeping that I have ever had camping. Even though it was in the high 30's my new Enlightened Equipment quilt kept me toasty warm. The next morning I didn't really want to get up, but Amanda had coffee ready so how could I refuse. We got packed back up and said goodbye to Jack and Amanda. Pink Bed's was our first trail of the day. It's only open to bikes in the winter and ended up being my favorite trail of the trip. Lots of cool wooden bridges and a nice tight trail made for a great experience. We popped out at a pinic area and took a left on 276 for a short stretch to FR 477. We had a little climb on 477 and then it was downhill to the car. When we got to the car we only had 700 feet of climbing for the day so we dumped the bags and climbed back up Clawhammer Rd until we got to 1000 feet for the day. Had a great meal at the Ugly Dog Cafe in Cashiers and then drove hwy 64 home. It was very smokey from all the forest fires burning and near Deep Gap the fire was really close to the road. It was a weekend of adventure for sure. Totally unplanned and in an are I had never been.