The Grose Road to the lookout is a fantastic novice MTB trail or warmup. at around 19kms from the car-park near Springwood High School (Where Grose Road and Chapman Parade Meet), it's a nice distance for a few hours on the bike. Approach via the Great Western Highway, turning at the obvious Grose Road signpost (Norman Lindsay Gallery) in Faulconbridge. The parking area at the school is 1/2km along, but it's possible to drive further and shorten the ride.
I
rode the trail on 17 Mar 2012 in the company of Dave The Happy Singer, in very doubtful weather, in a leisurely 1:45 of riding
The trail itself is rolling territory, no really big hills, and only one point where it's really possible to get in trouble - a downhill section on the return into a corner, where I misjudged my apex and had to try hard to recover. Even then I had to try hard to get any hint of a problem.
The trail proper starts from a locked gate about 3km from the school, and is a well-graded hardpack surface with only a few patches of sand and clay to catch you out in bad weather. One section near the end was waterlogged but easily bypassed. The trail ends at an clearing with telegraph poles, and a short wander to the lookout itself, an unfenced rock plateau on the very edge of the canyon of the Grose Valley. There's a very nice photo opportunity to be had here. More so if you can see the scenery.
The trail is well worth doing for the view alone. The Grose Valley is a truly spectacular piece of Aussie wilderness, but on our day the fog was so thick that the view from the lookout was like the inside of a candy floss machine.
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