Choccolocco Park, Jacksonville Alabama

upnover

Grumpy, decrepit Old Man
Moderator
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Location
Morganton NC
BDB went down for the weekend. We rode in on Thursday, wheeled Friday and Saturday.
Let me tell ya, this place has a lot of awesome obstacles! We tackled most of all of the red trails, and most of all of the others too. There were some trails I wanted nothing to do with, and some of the hill climbs needed more than I had, engine and HP!
All natural obstacles, not man mad stuff!
Large RV spots, OK restroom and shower house, but acceptable, esp when you just want clean.
Owners were awesome. Officially, the park opens on Friday morning, but we got there on Thursday. A phone call and they were there in 10 mins or so to let us in.
Pay station is the honor system. Fill out a paper, sign waiver, drop money in drop box.
Very reasonable, RV spot was $30 for the weekend, $30 for wheeling for the weekend. $10 more if you had a passenger. Also have ice for sale. Whish is also on the honor system!
Owners came down late Saturday night. Thanks us for coming, invited us back, and give us stickers for the park.
The best part is they have an app you can down load, and it tells you where you are. Use it to get efficiently to where you want to go. move 10', and it shows real time movement!
Maps kinda suck. Map has numbers, with list of names out to the side. Trails have names on them, That is, at least the ones that are marked, not all are. Or, there are trails, but they aren't on the map. BEst way to get around is with the app! I wish all trail systems had apps!

Bottom line, If you seek a new place to visit that will test everything you have done with your rig, this place is a great place to do just that.

Oh, Hotels, food, auto parks are all about 5-10 mins from the park!

I myself can say, I do wanna go back.
Downside was traveling down. Spartanburg and Greenville SC detours and construction, Sucked! And Atlanta traffic, well sucked even more. Next time, I may head over to Chattanooga and then south.
 
Next time we go I will be bypassing all that construction and going through TN. That was one of the worst towing experiences I've ever had.

Chocco is an awesome place, I'll definitely be going back next year.
 
There is no experience like towing through Atlanta, insane.

Atlanta wasn't terrible, the fact you drive through construction from NC to Al is what brought the suck for us. We detoured slightly on the way down which helped. The way back we hit Atlanta at 1:30 AM which it's still nuts at that time.
 
And 'Dre was there. Led our group through Atlanta in traffic hell.
I hit Warp 7 once we cleared that shit. 75 mph plus pulling at 24,000 pounds gross weight.
Park is awesome, trails are Badass. Once @Susan5679 scanned the bar code thingy, we navigated the trails in real time GPS.
No more missed turns or backing up.
And i "heard" that @upnover enjoyed the food from the dude camped beside him cooked.
My fat ass can put food on the table.
 
Chip I don’t mean to hi-jack, but since this park seems to be getting more and more good reviews, I thought I share what I wrote for our club news letter from our trip there last month. We very much enjoyed it and fully intend to go back.
But I will also go to TN and then head south next time!

Here is what was in our news letter:

Welcome to Choccolocco Mountain. That was the first sign we seen at the top of a hill when the road that just took us thru a nice pleasant neighborhood switched to gravel. It was so odd to travel thru such a place to get to what we’d soon find to be one of the best parks in the southeast. We pulled up to a shack and a stop sign, where more signs instructed us to fill out a waiver, select our weekend options, put our money in an envelope and drop it in a box. No kidding. Totally on the honor system there which I found pretty neat!

Cory and Larry had already arrived, so we all quickly setup camp and were extremely anxious to hit some trails. We’d already arrived much later than planned. After traffic, blown trailer tires, wrecks, construction and more, it was a long tow! In fact it’s the worst tow I’ve ever done, but very worth it all. We got camp setup, and we headed out for the infamous Boat Ramp obstacle. As we had feared, there was a good amount of water flowing down it, which made traction impossible despite a couple of our guest rigs being very built and one even having sticky tires. None of us even came close to making it.

From there we ran around to see some other things. Choccolocco has a map on the Avenza App and it’s one of the best digital maps I’ve ever seen! It tracks where you’re at, and literally every trail is clearly labeled so it’s easy to follow the map.

We headed on back to camp where all the kids were anxious to play and ride their four wheelers and dirt bikes. This was the lowest club attendance ride I’ve seen, however we had lots of guest to make up for it and they had brought their kids along. I had my 7 year old daughter Elena with me, for her first long distance trip. I can’t explain how much fun all these kids had on this trip! The park had a playground, zip lines, plenty of room and lots fun to offer the kids. Between the trail rides, four wheeler and dirt bike rides, and over all running around they had a blast! It was a great reminder of how CTB is such a family oriented club, as kids ran all over and everyone pitched in keeping an eye out.

Friday we discovered my Jeep had a weak fuel pump which was what caused my vapor lock issues the previous day and also at AOP last month. Luckily 6 minutes away there’s an Advance Auto and they had one in stock. Chris Kezia made short work of the change, not sure what I was doing, probably talking to someone. This would not be the last time my Jeep needed attention this trip!

We hit the trails and went right to more killer obstacles. One that ripped my valve core off right away.

Since Chocco is laid out much like AOP, a short trip back to camp for lunch was nice. I love how convenient that is. After lunch we hit the trails again, and discovered a place called Back Side, which was an amazing hillside about 200’ wide with many different lines to take with some being extreme and some being mild. It was there that one of our guest, Curtis discovered that he had separated his NP203/205 doubler. Some bolts had loosened causing them to rip the threads out and break ears off the adaptor between the cases. His weekend was done for.

Saturday morning we had enough time to cook up some breakfast before the rain came. A small shelter by the bathhouse offered lights, chairs, tables and even a fireplace in the center. We hung out here for an hour or so waiting on the rain to pass, along with all kinds of shenanigans and many jokes at my expense during this time. Eventually the rain passed and we were hitting the trail by 10:30. It wasn’t long before I noticed I’d lost the nut to the hiem on my drag link. Some zip ties and duct tape got me back to camp, where Cory had already gone to get me a nut from the local hardware store. Only to discover I’d also broken the center pin on the front passenger leaf spring, which I’d later find caused the axle to shift backward and spilt my transfer case.

Nevertheless, we buttoned this up and had several more hours of trouble free fun. I had placed 2 large pork loins on the smoker back at lunch time, so when the day was done we had another excellent meal with the traditional sweet meat!

It was then we discovered that there was a nasty storm heading our direction, due to hit us at 5am. They were calling for 2” hail, high winds, heavy rain and strong tornado possibility. We decided it would be best to leave that night, as to not need to pack up during the storm and drive back in it all day since it was heading the same direction. That was a mostly uneventful drive, up until one point at a gas station. There was a fight between one group of folks, and also A young guy approached us going in the store at 2:30am telling us he could change our lives and that he wasn’t crazy. He begged for a moment of our time and insisted he could change our life and that we’d remember that night forever. I was tired and cranky and seriously debated changing his face, but we ignored him and went in for the restroom and much needed coffee. When we came back out, he’d found someone to talk to alright. Apparently the cops were interested in a life change, but I’m pretty sure they changed his life instead. Random shouting and nonsense was happening as we drove away. Hey maybe he’s right, I’ll remember that night for a long time! We made it to Anderson, SC by 4:30amwhen we decided we could not go on anymore and needed a hotel room. We crashed for a few hours before we got back on the road by 8:30am.

It was an excellent trip, with lots of fun had by all. I highly recommend Choccolocco and plan to go there again for sure!

Phillip Talton- CTB secretary.
 
The reason Boatramp is so slick is everywhere the water is running, it is a thick, extremely slick algae growing on it. I have stickys, and with 4 pounds of air, AND using part of the dry right side, I was able to make it, with throttle about halfway up till I was able to muscle out the top. That was a stand still attempt, not the run and go like you see on so many video's .
 
The reason Boatramp is so slick is everywhere the water is running, it is a thick, extremely slick algae growing on it. I have stickys, and with 4 pounds of air, AND using part of the dry right side, I was able to make it, with throttle about halfway up till I was able to muscle out the top. That was a stand still attempt, not the run and go like you see on so many video's .

Just about every video I seen of people making it was a very slow crawl, little by little with a lot of going backwards and starting over. Only a few videos of people nailing and making it. I tried everything to no avail! There was quite a bit of water flowing over it while we were there, that is one heck of an obstacle that hurts a lot of feelings I’m sure!

A $60k buggy gets denied and then a clapped out Toyota on leaf springs crawls it, pretty crazy!
 
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