Heading down tomorrow to do the Xc are the trails snow and ice free

This was posted on my facetube page earlier,,

Innerleithan today. FC have closed half of the climb with a diversion up a vertical mud fest that has to be hiked for about 2k – until the end of June! It joins at last part of Minch Moor climb (which has a foot of snow and is a hike as well). FC had spooky on red and deliverance on black closed for 6 months last year. Glad I live close. Feel sorry for people who travel for a biking weekend only to find closed trails. Shame FC dont put any effort into diversions.

Check the FC web office info..

The diversion takes you up the SUW so misses out the start of the last climb. You can rejoin the climb if you follow the diversion or carry on along the SUW and rejoin at the bottom of the Minch Moor descent. We probably should have done that today, there are still patches of snow on Minch Moor but the rest is clear. You don’t miss much because of the diversion it’s just a different way of getting to the good stuff.

Innerleithan today. FC have closed half of the climb with a diversion up a vertical mud fest that has to be hiked for about 2k – until the end of June! It joins at last part of Minch Moor climb (which has a foot of snow and is a hike as well). FC had spooky on red and deliverance on black closed for 6 months last year. Glad I live close. Feel sorry for people who travel for a biking weekend only to find closed trails. Shame FC dont put any effort into diversions.

The Inners climb is about 400m and ridable, just misses out the STW climb. You still get the full descent.

Spooky was shut a while, true and so was Deliverence but its diversion was fun and full-on.

Spooky was closed because it was extensively logged and then got a fair bit of rebuilding into the bargain. It’s a tree factory, how very dare they do forestry work?

No descending is missed on the inners diversion by the way, and the diversion up the southern upland way is ridable, though fairly hard work. The only real alternative I can think of would be to go right round the hill on the fire-roads but that misses out the whole first descent.