- Jan 1, 2002
- 794
- 0
Last Sunday I ran the Bull Gap system. Fun stuff. I'd say on the west and north side, things are more whooped probably due to the higher sand content and more traffic. Lots of trees down (more on this shortly) making the trail more interesting than it might normally be. Traffic was pretty light, with a dozen or so quads encountered on the whole trail. Ended up with 73 miles on the GPS, although I ran a couple sections twice to get them recorded. Also skipped the ORV Route/SMTR straight line stuff, wasn't interested in that during this ride.
Bull Gap hill was pretty quiet, there were a few quads playing on it. Guess it's a big deal to them to climb it. I stayed out of their way and went up a side trail. Still a good sized hill.
The burned section north of Mack Lake had a lot of deadfall on it, passable, but you had to pick your way through. Maltby Hills area had so much deadfall in one area I couldn't get through. Regardless of which off trail route I tried to make, there was just so many trees down the TTR & I couldn't get to the other side. At least 500 feet of downed trees. I ended up trotting back to the road and did a bit of creative riding to come back around the other side. Couple guys I talked to who were riding there the following weekend indicated they ran up on a few guys with chainsaws clearing the trail. I'd be it's passable now.
I ran up on one groups of quads putting down the trail. I have no objection to people picking their own speeds and this group was definitely taking their time. 6 MPH to be exact, so slow I had trouble keeping the bike straight down the trail. Unfortunately this group was not the best trail "sharers" out there as I was stuck behind them for a mile. Not one of them looked back the whole time, not even the lead group. My TTR is too quiet so they didn't hear it, I didn't feel like yelling as this would only be heard (maybe) by the last in line. People, please, look BEHIND you. If not just to see me back there, at least check to see if your group has crashed or not. The last quad had a child riding double and the adult was letting them steer for much of it - they almost crashed (at 6mph) at one point when the quad grabbed a rut and the kid didn't have the strength to handle it. I was finally able to pass them when we reached the 489 staging area. Of course they stopped in the middle of the trail and this was just yards from the large grassy parking area. Sheesh. As luck would have it, I circled back to this area to record all of the one loop and this group had gone the way I was going back on. Needless to say I overtook them within a few miles and, you guessed it, they were taking another break AND completely blocking the trail. It wasn't like the woods were too thick to move off of the trail, in fact this was at a wide corner where plenty of room for all of them existed. I had to trample through the trees to get around 'em. This would have been a great opportunity to educate fellow riders, but I was not sure I could be tactful enough with 'em at the time.
Trails in the south and east sections are the most fun; not much sand, so not as many whoops, nice trail. Also ran the "most difficult" section, supposed to be bike only and is on the "A" loop, southern section. At first it was just a huge whooped out mess, I'm thinking "WTF? Most difficult due to the pee poor trail or what?" About halfway through it got pretty tight with mud, swamp and tree crossings. Fairly technical for a public trail, worth the whoops for the technical stuff, think it's only a mile or so of optional trail.
Conditions were quite good. In some of the darkest areas by Maltby Hills, there was a bit of ice and a couple sections of snow. Nothing that would stop you on a non-studded machine. Snowmobile trails were greasy and had the occasional spot of dirt covered ice in a dark corner.
Ran the Meadows system on Friday. Parked at the M-33 lot just north of the Pink Store (same place as the weekend before). The connecting trail from 33 to the actual Meadows system doesn't seem to get much use and was in real good shape. Since the plan was to record all of the trail system with the GPS, I hopped on the MCCCT when the trail reached it. I ran that south to the top of the Rose City loop (I have the MCCCT recorded from Gladwin up to that point). The MCCCT through the USFS land is cycle only trail with parallel ATV trail to help keep the quads off of it. The cycle sections are 18" specification and is probably on the narrow side of that. Some of it's a real blast, but a lot of it is whooped to oblivion making it almost painful to ride. I don't think it's been graded in it's 30 year life span. I was able to ride alongside the trail in some of the really bad whooped sections, but some of it was just up/down up/down. The further north on the trail, the funner the trail was, think it's a harder base, but in any case it's worth riding. The parallel ATV trail is a lot faster and also uses about half the trail mileage in the same area (ie MCCCT would be 2 miles in the same distance the ATV trail would be 1 mile). Lots of trees down on this trail as well and only one area that took me a few minutes to make a path around it through the bushes. I ran the MCCCT up to where it joins the ORV trail, although I can't recall if it separates again right away or not (this is a couple miles north of M-72). From there I picked up the ORV trail and ran it back to the Meadows loop. I was impressed with how fast this system is, in fact some sections of non-SMTR was fast enough that I kept backing off due to visibility issues (you could easily out-ride how far ahead you could see). A lot of the western side of the Meadows loop is snowmobile trail, real wide and so-so for riding. There is a bit of trail on it that's fun though. I can say the Meadows loop in general, on the ORV Trail, is a blast. Nice and twisty and not whooped out. Now, there are some sections that were whooped to hell, but it wasn't the majority. I like those winding woods trails that you can get decent cruising speed up and entertain yourself w/o the workout of riding whoops. Fun stuff! Some of it was good enough (and clay base so it's not just a seasonal thing) that I plan to incorporate it into our DS runs for the Safety Patrol Trail Tour next year.
There were about 50/50 bikes and quads on the trail, maybe 15 total. I spoke with one gentleman towards the end of my ride who was on a CR250 for a bit. He and his wife were new to woods riding (or at least that area) and were having a complete blast. His wife was on a 660 Raptor, but get this, it was her first time riding a quad. Took her about 5 minutes to catch up to him and said that she crashed 3 times since their last stop (ouch). That's a bit on the excessively large quad size for a newbie rider, but there you go.
I found out my TTR can do 93 miles of trail before hitting reserve. It'll also do at least seven miles on reserve (road riding) as I didn't have to push to get back to the truck.
I have to double check, but I think my GPS said that it took 5 hours to do 30 miles of that tight MCCCT and 3 hours to do the other 70 miles - obviously a bit of difference in terrain.
Due to the fuel issue, I didn't get the southern half of the "L" loop mapped, so now I have something extra to do when I proof the Safety Patrol ride in a few weeks.
It sure would be nice if Luzerne put in a gas station again.
Other than the few trees here and there (not much on the ORV sections) the trail was in darn good shape. Two small sections of mud covered ice on the shared SMTR, but nothing to get excited about. Ice that was covering a couple puddles on the Bull Gap loop, as well as water in a few others, were already gone when I went back over them to get to the Meadows connector.
Lots of bikes in Rose City and heading up to the area when I was on my way home. Nice to see; prior to this it's been 100% quads.
Bull Gap hill was pretty quiet, there were a few quads playing on it. Guess it's a big deal to them to climb it. I stayed out of their way and went up a side trail. Still a good sized hill.
The burned section north of Mack Lake had a lot of deadfall on it, passable, but you had to pick your way through. Maltby Hills area had so much deadfall in one area I couldn't get through. Regardless of which off trail route I tried to make, there was just so many trees down the TTR & I couldn't get to the other side. At least 500 feet of downed trees. I ended up trotting back to the road and did a bit of creative riding to come back around the other side. Couple guys I talked to who were riding there the following weekend indicated they ran up on a few guys with chainsaws clearing the trail. I'd be it's passable now.
I ran up on one groups of quads putting down the trail. I have no objection to people picking their own speeds and this group was definitely taking their time. 6 MPH to be exact, so slow I had trouble keeping the bike straight down the trail. Unfortunately this group was not the best trail "sharers" out there as I was stuck behind them for a mile. Not one of them looked back the whole time, not even the lead group. My TTR is too quiet so they didn't hear it, I didn't feel like yelling as this would only be heard (maybe) by the last in line. People, please, look BEHIND you. If not just to see me back there, at least check to see if your group has crashed or not. The last quad had a child riding double and the adult was letting them steer for much of it - they almost crashed (at 6mph) at one point when the quad grabbed a rut and the kid didn't have the strength to handle it. I was finally able to pass them when we reached the 489 staging area. Of course they stopped in the middle of the trail and this was just yards from the large grassy parking area. Sheesh. As luck would have it, I circled back to this area to record all of the one loop and this group had gone the way I was going back on. Needless to say I overtook them within a few miles and, you guessed it, they were taking another break AND completely blocking the trail. It wasn't like the woods were too thick to move off of the trail, in fact this was at a wide corner where plenty of room for all of them existed. I had to trample through the trees to get around 'em. This would have been a great opportunity to educate fellow riders, but I was not sure I could be tactful enough with 'em at the time.
Trails in the south and east sections are the most fun; not much sand, so not as many whoops, nice trail. Also ran the "most difficult" section, supposed to be bike only and is on the "A" loop, southern section. At first it was just a huge whooped out mess, I'm thinking "WTF? Most difficult due to the pee poor trail or what?" About halfway through it got pretty tight with mud, swamp and tree crossings. Fairly technical for a public trail, worth the whoops for the technical stuff, think it's only a mile or so of optional trail.
Conditions were quite good. In some of the darkest areas by Maltby Hills, there was a bit of ice and a couple sections of snow. Nothing that would stop you on a non-studded machine. Snowmobile trails were greasy and had the occasional spot of dirt covered ice in a dark corner.
Ran the Meadows system on Friday. Parked at the M-33 lot just north of the Pink Store (same place as the weekend before). The connecting trail from 33 to the actual Meadows system doesn't seem to get much use and was in real good shape. Since the plan was to record all of the trail system with the GPS, I hopped on the MCCCT when the trail reached it. I ran that south to the top of the Rose City loop (I have the MCCCT recorded from Gladwin up to that point). The MCCCT through the USFS land is cycle only trail with parallel ATV trail to help keep the quads off of it. The cycle sections are 18" specification and is probably on the narrow side of that. Some of it's a real blast, but a lot of it is whooped to oblivion making it almost painful to ride. I don't think it's been graded in it's 30 year life span. I was able to ride alongside the trail in some of the really bad whooped sections, but some of it was just up/down up/down. The further north on the trail, the funner the trail was, think it's a harder base, but in any case it's worth riding. The parallel ATV trail is a lot faster and also uses about half the trail mileage in the same area (ie MCCCT would be 2 miles in the same distance the ATV trail would be 1 mile). Lots of trees down on this trail as well and only one area that took me a few minutes to make a path around it through the bushes. I ran the MCCCT up to where it joins the ORV trail, although I can't recall if it separates again right away or not (this is a couple miles north of M-72). From there I picked up the ORV trail and ran it back to the Meadows loop. I was impressed with how fast this system is, in fact some sections of non-SMTR was fast enough that I kept backing off due to visibility issues (you could easily out-ride how far ahead you could see). A lot of the western side of the Meadows loop is snowmobile trail, real wide and so-so for riding. There is a bit of trail on it that's fun though. I can say the Meadows loop in general, on the ORV Trail, is a blast. Nice and twisty and not whooped out. Now, there are some sections that were whooped to hell, but it wasn't the majority. I like those winding woods trails that you can get decent cruising speed up and entertain yourself w/o the workout of riding whoops. Fun stuff! Some of it was good enough (and clay base so it's not just a seasonal thing) that I plan to incorporate it into our DS runs for the Safety Patrol Trail Tour next year.
There were about 50/50 bikes and quads on the trail, maybe 15 total. I spoke with one gentleman towards the end of my ride who was on a CR250 for a bit. He and his wife were new to woods riding (or at least that area) and were having a complete blast. His wife was on a 660 Raptor, but get this, it was her first time riding a quad. Took her about 5 minutes to catch up to him and said that she crashed 3 times since their last stop (ouch). That's a bit on the excessively large quad size for a newbie rider, but there you go.
I found out my TTR can do 93 miles of trail before hitting reserve. It'll also do at least seven miles on reserve (road riding) as I didn't have to push to get back to the truck.
I have to double check, but I think my GPS said that it took 5 hours to do 30 miles of that tight MCCCT and 3 hours to do the other 70 miles - obviously a bit of difference in terrain.
Due to the fuel issue, I didn't get the southern half of the "L" loop mapped, so now I have something extra to do when I proof the Safety Patrol ride in a few weeks.
It sure would be nice if Luzerne put in a gas station again.
Other than the few trees here and there (not much on the ORV sections) the trail was in darn good shape. Two small sections of mud covered ice on the shared SMTR, but nothing to get excited about. Ice that was covering a couple puddles on the Bull Gap loop, as well as water in a few others, were already gone when I went back over them to get to the Meadows connector.
Lots of bikes in Rose City and heading up to the area when I was on my way home. Nice to see; prior to this it's been 100% quads.