- Jan 1, 2002
- 794
- 0
Um yeah, ok so they don't actually connect, but I did hit 'em both this weekend. For the MCCCT, I ran it from Fife Lake (Ranch Rudolf actually) to just south/east of M-115. It's been a while and some of it wasn't real familiar. The new trail sections that YZMan & crew put in were fantastic!! A must ride section to be sure. None of it was too tight or "twisted" so you could keep a nice rhythm going at whatever speed was comfortable. Whenever you needed a quick breather the trail would break out on the "old" MCCCT which is real fun, but quad wide, trail. The area is almost all older hardwoods with good, hard packing soil (heavy loam and clay). Neat about the area are the hills and dips and lack of underbrush making vision in the woods good to fantastic. I am planning to use this for one of the Dual Sport routes for this year's Vintage Ride; we'll see if the DNR ever approves it (now there's a 4 page story!). The MCCCT was well marked on the whole section with 2 exceptions, one from obvious vandalism and the other from a recent paving spurt the county did which obliterated the road sides and any trees that did have the cute orange triangles. Neither affected the new trail portions and I see they've not removed the old MCCCT sections (still well marked). This latter bit is great for the DS event in case the more experienced riders don't want to hit this fantastic single track.
After recording that route I moved to Surprise Lake SF campground on the north end of the Evart MOTORCYCLE trail. The campground manager greeted me when pulling in and asked if I had dirt bikes (yes) and proceeded to warn me about the evil DNR and their ticketing habits if I wished to ride from the campground. He was cool with bikes riding out of there but that the trail was 1560 feet down the road and that meant $150 ticket. Since I'm plated this meant nothing and I thanked him for the fair warning (he was being really nice).
I'll side track here for a gripe about the Department. Here's an obvious need for an ORV Route (it's a freaking seasonal road!) to connect the campground to the trail. They are obvioulsy targetting this section. Yet when listening to the COs and other Department personnel at these ORV Ordinance meetings (and other things) they all sing the same tune - work with us for all your route needs, don't open all the roads to ORV use, we can work together to open just the "needed" ones. Obviously there's some serious lip service going on at times (not that they haven't worked with us, but it's never been on their lead). Ah, fun times at ridgemont high..
It rained most of the evening and I was looking forward to exploring Evart (not done before by me) and getting soaked by all the brush hanging in the trail. I was NOT disappointed either. Nothing shows the lack of brushing like a late summer rain! Most of the trail was good and the only real "in need" areas were from stuff that grows over the summer (between maintenance rounds). This trail needs graded though, there are some whooops out there that appear to never have been touched. I need to check with the CCC and see if this system is on their list (I bet no).
As for the trail itself, it's a nice trail, with the north portion being more enjoyable and less whooped/quad wide (ie narrower). The DNR map is fairly close and gets less accurate the further south you go. Trail is just under 23 miles long, but makes that up with the extra connector to the north. It's listed as a 24" trail and this holds true for most of it. There are some rasberry bush sections that have really overtaken the trail; luckily others had already de-thorned them for me. A few areas that have the thick scrub growing also had more "in-trail" clutter that was aggrevated by the moisture. Nothing to complain about though. The trail maintainers have a done a nice job of rerouting small bits of trail where erosion had become an issue. The infamous stair steps I heard of were not to be found and my 520 made easy work of all the root and rock infested twisty climbs. The north portion of trail is more hardwoods and has quite a bit of hard pack soil. The ever present Michigan sand springs to life on every third corner and meadow, but generally speaking it wasn't an issue. The recent rain also helped to subdue this perception as well, I suspect. There are a lot of rocks on this loop, bigger ones than many of the trails to be found in the lower peninsula. I bet motocross suspension sucks on this trail (unless well tuned, of course). There are 3 nice little bridges on the loop, which effectively mark the cutoff point and, I think, help to keep quads from getting into the north half (it's more than half, but it's the easiest description). These bridges are less than 50", I think, more like 40". Neat-O.
The parking lot at the south end was new and nice. Had a nice vault pooper that I checked out (it worked). Thanks to who ever left the roll of TP, the state supplied items were long since depleted...
Speaking of parking lots, the DNR map shows one at the south and one at the north ends of the trail. There is NO parking lot at the north end. You might be able to almost pull of the road, but it's not parking area.
The sugar bowl was a nice 30 second distraction. I pulled down there and quickly sized up the biggest (looking) hill. Rolling start in second followed by a healthy twist which resulted in an upshift to third by half way. Man those 520s can pour it on! After impressing all of the local squirrels with my hill conquering abilities, I went back up the incoming trail (the long really rocky one) and continued on my way. Shortly after is a logged out area. There are a few bigger trees left, and the trail has been cleaned up pretty well. It was in this section I saw the only other riders of the trip - 3 blue machines followed up by a 250x. I forgot which trail YZMan was running this weekend and stopped the last guy (on the crf) to see if it was him (it wasn't).
Fun trail, worth doing again. It's short though. I was putting along, trying to make sure the GPS got a good track, at about 12/mph and did the whole she-bang in a little over 2 hours.
After recording that route I moved to Surprise Lake SF campground on the north end of the Evart MOTORCYCLE trail. The campground manager greeted me when pulling in and asked if I had dirt bikes (yes) and proceeded to warn me about the evil DNR and their ticketing habits if I wished to ride from the campground. He was cool with bikes riding out of there but that the trail was 1560 feet down the road and that meant $150 ticket. Since I'm plated this meant nothing and I thanked him for the fair warning (he was being really nice).
I'll side track here for a gripe about the Department. Here's an obvious need for an ORV Route (it's a freaking seasonal road!) to connect the campground to the trail. They are obvioulsy targetting this section. Yet when listening to the COs and other Department personnel at these ORV Ordinance meetings (and other things) they all sing the same tune - work with us for all your route needs, don't open all the roads to ORV use, we can work together to open just the "needed" ones. Obviously there's some serious lip service going on at times (not that they haven't worked with us, but it's never been on their lead). Ah, fun times at ridgemont high..
It rained most of the evening and I was looking forward to exploring Evart (not done before by me) and getting soaked by all the brush hanging in the trail. I was NOT disappointed either. Nothing shows the lack of brushing like a late summer rain! Most of the trail was good and the only real "in need" areas were from stuff that grows over the summer (between maintenance rounds). This trail needs graded though, there are some whooops out there that appear to never have been touched. I need to check with the CCC and see if this system is on their list (I bet no).
As for the trail itself, it's a nice trail, with the north portion being more enjoyable and less whooped/quad wide (ie narrower). The DNR map is fairly close and gets less accurate the further south you go. Trail is just under 23 miles long, but makes that up with the extra connector to the north. It's listed as a 24" trail and this holds true for most of it. There are some rasberry bush sections that have really overtaken the trail; luckily others had already de-thorned them for me. A few areas that have the thick scrub growing also had more "in-trail" clutter that was aggrevated by the moisture. Nothing to complain about though. The trail maintainers have a done a nice job of rerouting small bits of trail where erosion had become an issue. The infamous stair steps I heard of were not to be found and my 520 made easy work of all the root and rock infested twisty climbs. The north portion of trail is more hardwoods and has quite a bit of hard pack soil. The ever present Michigan sand springs to life on every third corner and meadow, but generally speaking it wasn't an issue. The recent rain also helped to subdue this perception as well, I suspect. There are a lot of rocks on this loop, bigger ones than many of the trails to be found in the lower peninsula. I bet motocross suspension sucks on this trail (unless well tuned, of course). There are 3 nice little bridges on the loop, which effectively mark the cutoff point and, I think, help to keep quads from getting into the north half (it's more than half, but it's the easiest description). These bridges are less than 50", I think, more like 40". Neat-O.
The parking lot at the south end was new and nice. Had a nice vault pooper that I checked out (it worked). Thanks to who ever left the roll of TP, the state supplied items were long since depleted...
Speaking of parking lots, the DNR map shows one at the south and one at the north ends of the trail. There is NO parking lot at the north end. You might be able to almost pull of the road, but it's not parking area.
The sugar bowl was a nice 30 second distraction. I pulled down there and quickly sized up the biggest (looking) hill. Rolling start in second followed by a healthy twist which resulted in an upshift to third by half way. Man those 520s can pour it on! After impressing all of the local squirrels with my hill conquering abilities, I went back up the incoming trail (the long really rocky one) and continued on my way. Shortly after is a logged out area. There are a few bigger trees left, and the trail has been cleaned up pretty well. It was in this section I saw the only other riders of the trip - 3 blue machines followed up by a 250x. I forgot which trail YZMan was running this weekend and stopped the last guy (on the crf) to see if it was him (it wasn't).
Fun trail, worth doing again. It's short though. I was putting along, trying to make sure the GPS got a good track, at about 12/mph and did the whole she-bang in a little over 2 hours.
