Week of wheeling

77GreenMachine

77GreenMachine

Phillip Talton
Joined
Mar 30, 2010
Location
Trinity, NC
What all parks would you hit with the intention of leaving on a Thursday and returning home the following Saturday?

Context: loosely planned to go to Moab next year for a long time. But I have seriously considered for the money spent to fly and rent, I could take an epic trip to Oklahoma and back, hitting parks as I work my way back home.

Start by driving to Rugged Mountain Ranch, spend a solid day, maybe two there and then drive an hour to Green Acres Off-road and spend 2 days there.
From there make a long drive to Hale Mountain, spend 2 days there and head home.

Or do it on a closer scale..
Head straight to Hollerwood in Red River Gorge, KY. Spend 2 days there (plus the half day after arriving) then head to Harlan (could replace this, as I always go to Harlan) then drop down to Windrock. Then either head home, or drive 3.5 hours from there to Hale Mountain, then 7.5 hours home.

Never been to any parks in option one.

I have never been to Hollerwood, I know Harlan like the back of my hand, but Windrock might as well be new. Went once and rode no good trails other than Stair Step and Waldens Ridge.
 
Never been to any of the above, except windrock.
We’ve been there the past 2 years and will go back.
I’m in to follow along, and read the “epic trip thread” and see the pictures.
 
tobaccoroad4wd said:
Never been to any of the above, except windrock.
We’ve been there the past 2 years and will go back.
I’m in to follow along, and read the “epic trip thread” and see the pictures.
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I went in February 2019 and have been in zero hurry to go back. But I think I’ll go again next year and give it another shot.
 
If you go to hollerwood, try to find someone who knows the trails to ride with. When we were there, maps were terrible. There were some great trails once we hooked up with some locals.
 
Slade, ky has some killer places that I’ve been told about but that’s one the upper end. Windrock is huge and has some killer trails, Harlan is Harlan and I always have a good time there. There’s a few local places in Wva I could probably hook you up with. Forrest roads with some crazy stuff if you know where to go.
 
77GreenMachine said:
I went in February 2019 and have been in zero hurry to go back. But I think I’ll go again next year and give it another shot.
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Download the app map, pay the $7 or so and use it to follow along. The printed map sucks, as does the app map, but at least you have a dot to show you where you are. There are some great trails there. Weekends typically mean lots of people and tons of SxSs, so if you’re there on a week day you can hit what you want and not deal with traffic.
 
Hollerwood, Harlan, and Windrock sound like a good time. I think AOAA and Rausch and MotoCove would be a good trip, not sure if it would cover 10 days.

Duane
 
tobaccoroad4wd said:
Download the app map, pay the $7 or so and use it to follow along. The printed map sucks, as does the app map, but at least you have a dot to show you where you are. There are some great trails there. Weekends typically mean lots of people and tons of SxSs, so if you’re there on a week day you can hit what you want and not deal with traffic.
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I’ve heard, and I wanna hit them. The problem wasn’t finding them, the problem was no one wanted to hit them.
 
CLRracer said:
Hollerwood, Harlan, and Windrock sound like a good time. I think AOAA and Rausch and MotoCove would be a good trip, not sure if it would cover 10 days.

Duane
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Another bonus for that is this is a father/daughter trip. The driving hours there I can manage no problem. Going to Oklahoma I HAVE to find a buddy to go and share the driving. Problem is all those buddy’s also want to go and take their rig, which I get and encourage. Other problem is, there’s very few people I wanna be stuck in a truck with that long regardless of how good a friends we are.
I just went to Indiana and back in 24 hours and it was a freaking blast. Taking turns driving makes it easy. But again, good company makes it easy lol
 
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Wife and I are flying out west for 2 weeks coming up soon. Flying into Las Vegas, picking up a rental Corolla and driving straight to Moab. I rented a JKU from Twisted Jeeps for 2 full days of wheeling. I'll report back after our trip and let you know how it was.

Round trip air fare for the wife and I to Las Vegas was around $400 non-stop out of Raleigh. The JKU from Twisted Jeeps was $329 a day and I believe the place we're staying was $125 a night.

On the other hand, once I get my buggy finished making a trip out to Oklahoma is definitely high on my to-do list. Want to hit Rugged Mountain Ranch, Green Acres and Disney. But I'd want a group of 3-6 buggies going if I was going to make that trip.
 
There is also Rush and Dirty Turtle in KY. I don't know much about either but I do want to hit them up.
 
untchabl said:
Wife and I are flying out west for 2 weeks coming up soon. Flying into Las Vegas, picking up a rental Corolla and driving straight to Moab. I rented a JKU from Twisted Jeeps for 2 full days of wheeling. I'll report back after our trip and let you know how it was.

Round trip air fare for the wife and I to Las Vegas was around $400 non-stop out of Raleigh. The JKU from Twisted Jeeps was $329 a day and I believe the place we're staying was $125 a night.

On the other hand, once I get my buggy finished making a trip out to Oklahoma is definitely high on my to-do list. Want to hit Rugged Mountain Ranch, Green Acres and Disney. But I'd want a group of 3-6 buggies going if I was going to make that trip.
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Yes Moab is still up for consideration for sure.
Disney was a top priority, but my buddy just came back from there and said the only way he’d recommend it is if you were literally going right by there and wanted to wheel for a couple hours.

I know I’ll have at least 2 other very capable rigs with me

ghost said:
There is also Rush and Dirty Turtle in KY. I don't know much about either but I do want to hit them up.
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Both of those are very much geared towards SxS and mall crawling JK/JL crowd.
 
77GreenMachine said:
Both of those are very much geared towards SxS and mall crawling JK/JL crowd.
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I did not realize that. One of my NAXJA friends and his local group from Cincinnati help cut trails at Rush. I always was told it was a fun place to wheel.
 
It’s been …too long but dirty turtlenused to have some amazing fool size stuff

also..you could easily wheel 7 days at Windrock and never run the same trail. Very few realize how huge that place is.
 
ghost said:
I did not realize that. One of my NAXJA friends and his local group from Cincinnati help cut trails at Rush. I always was told it was a fun place to wheel.
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To be expected from a bunch of XJ guys :laughing:

Kidding.

I have heard there’s some good stuff there, but you can overlook it easily without someone to show you around. I prefer to go somewhere known good on a trip like this to maximize time spent.


@Ron —- also..you could easily wheel 7 days at Windrock and never run the same trail. Very few realize how huge that place is.

This is true. I think on the back end of the trip I would arrive at Windrock on Wednesday and wheel till Saturday. Come home, rest on Sunday and back to work Monday.
 
Ron said:
also..you could easily wheel 7 days at Windrock and never run the same trail. Very few realize how huge that place is.
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Back in college and before my junk went to storage/Jack stands that’s where me and my UT buddies would go…frequently ran in to WCU and App St ‘clubs’. I remember thinking at the time ‘some of this should start becoming familiar’, but a day or two every 2-3 months, I doubt I ran the same trail more than 2-3 times. But I do remember it was a good time 10-12 years ago.
 
While I don't think it's worth the trip from here, Rush does have some good full size trails. The problem is most of them are blocked from heavy storm damage with multiple trees down.

I've heard AOAA is awesome and know for a fact that Raush Creek is. I'd like to make a trip to both of them soon.
 
Hale is small. No way to do 2 days there. It's also closed most of the time.

Hollerwood is great and I can put you in contact with great people who know all the cool stuff. We went down a super sketchy ridge last time I was there and we want to go back up it next time we ride. Plenty of cool little KY style hillclimbs too.

Wheeling for a week sound like a lot of fun until you realize that you have to take it easy in order to save the car.


Edit : if you can link windrock, tacket creek, the sandmines, slade, hollerwood etc and almost never touch pavement in a week.
 
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Bebop said:
Wheeling for a week sound like a lot of fun until you realize that you have to take it easy in order to save the car.
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This is my concern
 
Bebop said:
Wheeling for a week sound like a lot of fun until you realize that you have to take it easy in order to save the car.
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You’re right but I still think that would be fun. That just means instead up backing up and banging the Rev limiter 8 times till I make it, I decide to pull cable or go around. Sure that doesn’t sound as cool, but it keeps me wheeling. Spending a whole week or more doing my absolute favorite thing sounds like a blast.
My concern is being absolutely exhausted by the end, but it’ll be worth it lol
 
This is us getting ready to launch it in Disney till the trailer hitch stopped us!
77189720-A628-42B6-ABFE-1C9E1BA02556.jpeg
 
77GreenMachine said:
You’re right but I still think that would be fun. That just means instead up backing up and banging the Rev limiter 8 times till I make it, I decide to pull cable or go around. Sure that doesn’t sound as cool, but it keeps me wheeling. Spending a whole week or more doing my absolute favorite thing sounds like a blast.
My concern is being absolutely exhausted by the end, but it’ll be worth it lol
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It's doable and it's been done.
I'd read/watch the report of your trip for sure, I bet you'd have a good time.
 
Bebop said:
It's doable and it's been done.
I'd read/watch the report of your trip for sure, I bet you'd have a good time.
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I will certainly write a story when I return, or as I go.

Speaking of I haven’t wrote one in a while here.
 
The "Save the rig" idea keeps me thinking for just one week of wheeling, I'm staying regional. A couple days at Windrock, a couple of days in Harlan, finish the trip at the WV parks. At least if anything happens at any of those locations outside of a standard spare parts cache, I can probably con one of the other people on the board to meet me halfway or something to get what I need to keep the trip going.

For a Colorado/Moab/SandHollow distance kind of trip I'd like to have two weeks.
 
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