77GreenMachine
Phillip Talton
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2010
- Location
- Trinity, NC
Ivy Branch
So me and @Curtis_H and @D2320M decided to go see what Ivy Branch was all about. We’d been wanting to go for years and we finally decided to go.
I took my daughter, and Curtis took his son. They’re the same age and have more or less grew up together. They had a blast. We rolled in Friday at lunch time and set up camp at The Little Coal River Campground. It’s not the nicest camp but not the worst. I’d put it on par with The Dairy Hut in Harlan if you made it a touch more trashy. Some folks live there permanently, so that was a little odd as we were the outsiders. But we had no issues other than actually getting in touch with the lady to reserve the place is VERY hard.
Once setup we headed out. You have to drive down a split 4 lane highway (119) for a mile and then onto route 3 (2 lane back road) for 2 miles to the trail head. You can drive on the shoulder if needed. We passed a sheriff more than once and they just waved, it’s perfectly legal. Derek got ahead of us on 3 and we weren’t sure where to go. We stopped at a store to ask and met a person that told us where to go. I wasn’t real sure if this person was a dude with a mullet, or a woman with a beard.
We were on the right track, just needed to keep going some more. Once there we bought our pass, which was $50 and good for one year! Off into the trails and up into the mountain we headed straight for red/black trails. We were using Maplets digital map. Which we later learned hasn’t been updated since 2013. That bit us several times, we should have gotten a paper map.
I always plan everything, on almost every trip. I decided I wasn’t going to navigate this trip and would just follow along wherever they went. This was a nice change, but I regret it as I have almost no idea what trails we ran and couldn’t get back to them to save my life. I do however know we ran pretty much every red/black trail except 95 and maybe one other, plus awesome stuff that isn’t on the map. Some things we hit weren’t on the map.
The first big obstacle we pulled up to was pretty gnarly. @Curtis_H tried it and was getting close, but it was leaning hard on the wall. I could never describe what happened next, if you weren’t there you just can’t appreciate what happened. Basically Curt’s Jeep decided it want to play par-core. It was leaned over to the passenger side with all 4 wheels on the bank, and in a split second while trying to get over the entire Jeep hopped up and shifted to the other side of the bank. It just bunny hoped from one bank to the other and sat right back down. Curt braced for a rollover, Derek flinched as he watched from the side, and everyone was sure he was about to be upside down but it just switched to the other bank. Like a skate boarder doing a wall ride or something. It was insane and I’ve never seen anything like it. We decided that it was early in the day and maybe we should go see other stuff and come back to that.
From there we rode around and came across the famous waterfall beside the tree that I’ve seen dozens of videos of. I got my front tires on it easily, but my wheel base proved to be too short as two attempts I pulled front tires up and jammed it in reverse. I knew I had nothing for it. So I backed up and both Derek and Curt made it look really easy. On to other good stuff we rode for a while until Derek lost oil pressure. It was down in the low teens, sometimes single digits. So we went back to camp and called it.
Back at camp the kids were ready to get in the river. The water was cold but refreshing for sure. We enjoyed getting the mud off and cooling off and then focused on dinner. Derek brought a bunch of deer burger so Chef Curt whipped us up a spread of bacon jalapeño poppers, deer burgers and I brought some tator salad. We ate good as usual. The kids rode bikes and played for a while as we enjoyed conversation and cold snacks. We all went to bed pretty early anticipating a big day of wheeling ahead.
About 6am I heard a noise that shook my camper and pierced my ears. I though The Lord had split the eastern sky and was coming back. I came out of the bed in a panic and nailed my head on the bunk. As I fully woke up from my stupor I realized what I was hearing was a coal train wizzing by. After the engine passed it became clear the rest of the wheels on each car hadn’t been greased since 1993. It must have been a really long train cause it went on for close to 10 minutes.
Once up Curtis began breakfast, me and Derek rode into town to get a new oil pressure sending unit. We hoped to find an adapter to also run a mechanical gauge but had no luck.
We did however pass a street sign pointing to “Whitehouse Road” and instantly began singing the Tyler Childers song. If you know you know.
Once back the new sensor warranted the same readings. We concluded that there must be something else going on it’s not truly that low. He decided to wheel on after debating riding passenger. The day never gave any issues or signs/sounds of low oil pressure. Eventually he just ignored the display and kept wheeling. He’ll be installing a mechanical gauge this week. We packed lunch and a bunch of water and headed for the trails at 9:30. Straight over to the other side of the park we were soon into some pretty awesome stuff. Derek made it into a really awesome notch/ledge, where Curtis also tried. Curt laid his on it’s side several times attempting it but was able to back out of it each time, it was pretty awesome and we got video. Curt winched thru that but it didn’t help him much, he really could have done it on his on but was hot and tired. I decided I had nothing to offer that trail and went around to keep moving. We carried on, hitting trail after trail of the hardest stuff I’ve personally ever wheeled. It felt like we were on an endless ride of trails like Cripple Creek, Mason Jar, Crawford’s Cry, White Tail, Rattle Rock and more; over and over. It was awesome. We broke for a gourmet lunch of sandwiches and pizza lunchables with a side of Doritos, Food Lion water, Pepsi, and a lone Miller Lite hanging out in my cooler. I finished that lunch with a pinch of Copenhagen and we continued on. We ran all we could stand, which was almost everything and by 5pm we headed back.
Once back at camp we enjoyed a few cold snacks and back to the river it was. The kids played, we played, told stories and laughed, threw the kids till our backs hurt and then headed back to camp. Once back again Chef Curt fixed us up a fine grub of steaks, pork chops, garden fresh squash, mushrooms, I made some Mac and cheese to go with that, and we enjoyed a meal as we processed the events of the day. All of our rigs came back in one piece, ready to go out for the next trip.
My Jeep is still new to me, as it was my 3rd trip out. I’d spent a good amount of money buying the Jeep, and rebuilding the cage converting it to a 4 seater. After a weekend like this, all that money seemed very much worth it and I couldn’t be happier.
I know this isn’t as funny as my normal stories and a bit dry. But the mindset was different on this trip. Very little beer, early nights and no shenanigans made for a different kind of fun and more trail miles than I think I’ve ever done. I highly recommend Ivy Branch. It is spread out a lot like Harlan but they do offer a lot of trails for everyone. A lot of the wild trails are pretty close together and very very fun.
So me and @Curtis_H and @D2320M decided to go see what Ivy Branch was all about. We’d been wanting to go for years and we finally decided to go.
I took my daughter, and Curtis took his son. They’re the same age and have more or less grew up together. They had a blast. We rolled in Friday at lunch time and set up camp at The Little Coal River Campground. It’s not the nicest camp but not the worst. I’d put it on par with The Dairy Hut in Harlan if you made it a touch more trashy. Some folks live there permanently, so that was a little odd as we were the outsiders. But we had no issues other than actually getting in touch with the lady to reserve the place is VERY hard.
Once setup we headed out. You have to drive down a split 4 lane highway (119) for a mile and then onto route 3 (2 lane back road) for 2 miles to the trail head. You can drive on the shoulder if needed. We passed a sheriff more than once and they just waved, it’s perfectly legal. Derek got ahead of us on 3 and we weren’t sure where to go. We stopped at a store to ask and met a person that told us where to go. I wasn’t real sure if this person was a dude with a mullet, or a woman with a beard.
We were on the right track, just needed to keep going some more. Once there we bought our pass, which was $50 and good for one year! Off into the trails and up into the mountain we headed straight for red/black trails. We were using Maplets digital map. Which we later learned hasn’t been updated since 2013. That bit us several times, we should have gotten a paper map.
I always plan everything, on almost every trip. I decided I wasn’t going to navigate this trip and would just follow along wherever they went. This was a nice change, but I regret it as I have almost no idea what trails we ran and couldn’t get back to them to save my life. I do however know we ran pretty much every red/black trail except 95 and maybe one other, plus awesome stuff that isn’t on the map. Some things we hit weren’t on the map.
The first big obstacle we pulled up to was pretty gnarly. @Curtis_H tried it and was getting close, but it was leaning hard on the wall. I could never describe what happened next, if you weren’t there you just can’t appreciate what happened. Basically Curt’s Jeep decided it want to play par-core. It was leaned over to the passenger side with all 4 wheels on the bank, and in a split second while trying to get over the entire Jeep hopped up and shifted to the other side of the bank. It just bunny hoped from one bank to the other and sat right back down. Curt braced for a rollover, Derek flinched as he watched from the side, and everyone was sure he was about to be upside down but it just switched to the other bank. Like a skate boarder doing a wall ride or something. It was insane and I’ve never seen anything like it. We decided that it was early in the day and maybe we should go see other stuff and come back to that.
From there we rode around and came across the famous waterfall beside the tree that I’ve seen dozens of videos of. I got my front tires on it easily, but my wheel base proved to be too short as two attempts I pulled front tires up and jammed it in reverse. I knew I had nothing for it. So I backed up and both Derek and Curt made it look really easy. On to other good stuff we rode for a while until Derek lost oil pressure. It was down in the low teens, sometimes single digits. So we went back to camp and called it.
Back at camp the kids were ready to get in the river. The water was cold but refreshing for sure. We enjoyed getting the mud off and cooling off and then focused on dinner. Derek brought a bunch of deer burger so Chef Curt whipped us up a spread of bacon jalapeño poppers, deer burgers and I brought some tator salad. We ate good as usual. The kids rode bikes and played for a while as we enjoyed conversation and cold snacks. We all went to bed pretty early anticipating a big day of wheeling ahead.
About 6am I heard a noise that shook my camper and pierced my ears. I though The Lord had split the eastern sky and was coming back. I came out of the bed in a panic and nailed my head on the bunk. As I fully woke up from my stupor I realized what I was hearing was a coal train wizzing by. After the engine passed it became clear the rest of the wheels on each car hadn’t been greased since 1993. It must have been a really long train cause it went on for close to 10 minutes.
Once up Curtis began breakfast, me and Derek rode into town to get a new oil pressure sending unit. We hoped to find an adapter to also run a mechanical gauge but had no luck.
We did however pass a street sign pointing to “Whitehouse Road” and instantly began singing the Tyler Childers song. If you know you know.
Once back the new sensor warranted the same readings. We concluded that there must be something else going on it’s not truly that low. He decided to wheel on after debating riding passenger. The day never gave any issues or signs/sounds of low oil pressure. Eventually he just ignored the display and kept wheeling. He’ll be installing a mechanical gauge this week. We packed lunch and a bunch of water and headed for the trails at 9:30. Straight over to the other side of the park we were soon into some pretty awesome stuff. Derek made it into a really awesome notch/ledge, where Curtis also tried. Curt laid his on it’s side several times attempting it but was able to back out of it each time, it was pretty awesome and we got video. Curt winched thru that but it didn’t help him much, he really could have done it on his on but was hot and tired. I decided I had nothing to offer that trail and went around to keep moving. We carried on, hitting trail after trail of the hardest stuff I’ve personally ever wheeled. It felt like we were on an endless ride of trails like Cripple Creek, Mason Jar, Crawford’s Cry, White Tail, Rattle Rock and more; over and over. It was awesome. We broke for a gourmet lunch of sandwiches and pizza lunchables with a side of Doritos, Food Lion water, Pepsi, and a lone Miller Lite hanging out in my cooler. I finished that lunch with a pinch of Copenhagen and we continued on. We ran all we could stand, which was almost everything and by 5pm we headed back.
Once back at camp we enjoyed a few cold snacks and back to the river it was. The kids played, we played, told stories and laughed, threw the kids till our backs hurt and then headed back to camp. Once back again Chef Curt fixed us up a fine grub of steaks, pork chops, garden fresh squash, mushrooms, I made some Mac and cheese to go with that, and we enjoyed a meal as we processed the events of the day. All of our rigs came back in one piece, ready to go out for the next trip.
My Jeep is still new to me, as it was my 3rd trip out. I’d spent a good amount of money buying the Jeep, and rebuilding the cage converting it to a 4 seater. After a weekend like this, all that money seemed very much worth it and I couldn’t be happier.
I know this isn’t as funny as my normal stories and a bit dry. But the mindset was different on this trip. Very little beer, early nights and no shenanigans made for a different kind of fun and more trail miles than I think I’ve ever done. I highly recommend Ivy Branch. It is spread out a lot like Harlan but they do offer a lot of trails for everyone. A lot of the wild trails are pretty close together and very very fun.
