Fellow SOAR members, I'll be riding at Hatfield-McCoy this weekend. I plan to arrive at Chief Logan State Park campground sometime Friday and camp there Friday and Saturday night. The campground is located off WV-10 about 6 miles north of the town of Logan, WV. Permits can be purchased at the trailheads. Depending on whether someone can get time off work, we may arrive early enough to ride some on Friday. Hope to see some of you there!

Keep the rubber side down!

Lee

 

Unfortantly I won't be able to attend this adventure. Let me know how it was though. See ya.

 

Myself and 6 other friends will be arriving november 3 and riding saturday sunday and monday.
Traveling from Illinois.

 

Myself and 6 other friends will be arriving november 3 and riding saturday sunday and monday.
Traveling from Illinois.

 

I am not going to make it either,we are taking
the wifes to bigrock sunday.


TRUCK

 

Hope you had a good time at Bigrock. Our trip consisted of a party of 2. We left Cincinnati at a little before noon, Friday and arrived at Bear Wallow trailhead at 4:00 PM. By the time we unloaded, we only had an hour to ride. We rode the 93-41-16 loop in less than a half hour, so we turned around and rode it back the other way since that's all we had time for. We will have to explore this area more extensively the next time we go down. Yes we are definitely going back!
Saturday, we went down to Rockhouse. After waiting in the road construction 3 times (my friend left his key to unlock the quads back at the room) we finally started riding at a little before 11:00 AM. We managed to ride just about every trail in this system. there were a couple that were closed off. Trail 32 and 93 have some nice hill climbs. There was some mud but nothing real challenging. All in all, this was a nice system. I don't reccomend bringing a first timer here, but if you were determined to do so, this would probably be the best trailhead.
Sunday, we made it Rev Compton Park and were riding by 9:00 AM. Once again, we rode just about every trail that was open except trail 19. If you like mud trail 92 is full of it. Trail 96 is closed to quads. We got stuck 4 times on trail 92. It wouldn't have been so bad except I wasn't prepared for it. I forgot change into my boots before I left and ended up riding home in wet gym shoes. I swamped my Recon in one hole and since my winch was under water, I couldn't see to wind the cable properly and jammed it up pulling my quad out. This made for more interesting adventures the next time we got stuck (both of us). We did manage to horse them out with brute strength. It's a good thing those Recons only weigh 370 lbs! Hopefully, I'll be able to repair my winch. Some taller tires are in my future. An extra inch of ground clearance sure would have helped a couple of times this weekend. Trail 92 did have a nice hillclimb at the end, but I'd be interested in knowing if this trail's difficulty is based strictly on the mud? Trail 10 towards Matewan is not an easy trail. There are some spots where you ride close to the edge. It is a very nice ride though. Trail 98 (The Quad Destroyer) is as technical as you would want. When we arrived at one particular hillclimb that takes you to the very top, there were some folks at the bottom in desparate need of a 100' tow strap. Unfortunately, we only had 30'. One of them flipped the quad backwards near the top and it went about 150' down the mountain. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The Quad was busted up pretty good though. I'm not sure how they got it out, but it was gone when we returned later that day. I made it up the hill ok but my friend, who is 50 lbs. lighter had trouble with his front end coming up, so I went back down and we went back the other way. Going the other way, there is a spot where you have to straddle the gas line and our quads bottomed out. We had to pick them up and put them over on the other side to get them out. Hopefully, something can be done to remedy this, short of closing this trail. Great trail! We then rode 10 the rest of the way to Matewan. For those of you who are worried about not having enough gas to make it back, you can gas up at Citgo just over the bridge. After chatting with some locals and a soft drink we were back on our way. On our way back we went 98 the other way. No problems going down the big hill except we had to lift the quads over the gas line again. By now it was starting to get dark, so we had to bust tail back to the trailhead. All in all it was a great experience. I would reccomend this trail system to anyone except a pure beginner. The locals were friendly and helpful. The trails were definately worth the 4 hour drive! Some of the locals told us that when a strip mining operation is completed sometime next summer that all 3 trail systems will be interconnected. I sure hope that's true. I hope that camping will eventually be allowed along the trail when fire danger is low.

 

Glad you had fun. This is an ASSUME trail system isn't it. Trail 98 will get your adrenaline going won't it. I went down Trail 98 going back to the trail head and was as far back on the seat as I could get. Next time you get back make sure you do trail 94 at Bear Wallow, it is a great hill climb but not as steep as trail 98 at Rev. Compton it goes from 900 ft to 2400 right up the side of the mountian with some rutts right near the top to chanlage you a little. I fell in the rutts two out of the three times I went up and had to ride up in the rutts. No problem just at a slight angle.

I am heading back down for Thanksgiving Weekend. Anyone else heading down? I meeting two guys from the Ford-Diesel.com web page down there. If your going let me know and maybe we can meet up.
Wayne B