Nine of us went to the Upper Tellico trails near Murphy,NC this past weekend. The riding there was great. There are several places that you need a winch or several people taking hold of the 4-wheeler to get over some of the dropoffs. This is some of the most challenging and best riding trails we have been on. The only drawback that we encountered was the place was saturated with jeeps from Ocala Jeep Club in Florida. When we arrived at the parking lot they had the entrance completely blocked while they socialized and didn't even offer to move and let us 4 truck loads of atv's by. Different times on the trails we ran into the same thing. Most of these people didn't even speak when we spoke to them, didn't bother to try and let you by, just acted like they were better than you and the trails were there just for them. Not all of them were that way, some spoke and were friendly, but they were the exception rather than the rule. I guess that if you can't fiqure out how to mark a ballot, having a few manners is out of the question. Anyhow I hope my fellow 4-wheelers will be much more courteous and not give us a reputation like this. We were just a bunch of country boys from the N.C. foothills, but we try to show people more respect than this.

 

Homer,
We been planning a trip to tellico or Hatfield.
What type of quad do you ride,2wd or 4wd?We like
challenging riding conditions and are serious
about making this trip.Most of the group we ride
with are on motocross bikes and I'm on a 250R.
Are these ledges you were commenting on being
climbed by 2-wheelers?We usually ride at 909
near Livingston kentucky and there is a section
there called the stair steps,and I was curious
as to how they compare.Thanks for any info you
can share.
R.Halcomb
89 250R
01 Honda Rubicon

 

250r4ever, I ride a 300 arctic cat 4X4. Most of the guys riding with us were on polaris 4X4 with the exception of one grizzly and a two wheel drive polaris. We had to push and balance all the quads at times. I think it would be eaiser for 2 wheelers to go around the ledges in most places. There is an article back on these trails made by ATV Connection that can explain them better than I can. You can find it by going to the ATV Connection main page, click on trails, go to North Carolina section, and click on the ATV Connection article on North Carolina Riding. It has a good article on Upper Tellico. If I was driving all the way from Indiana I would probably go to Hatfield first as from what I understand they have probably the best trails on the east coast. There aren't nearly as many trails at tellico. We haven't had a chance to to to Hatfield yet, but we are very anxious to try these. I am sure you will have a blast wherever you go. Have fun and keep the wheels turning.

 

i didn't like it there very much because of the challenging riding. it was very hard for me to ride because i was a novice when i went. all i know is that u'd better take some ice cuz u'll be sore

 

Just to play Devil's advocate for a second:

Most people don't know that all the trails in Tellico are maintained by Southern 4-Wheel Drive association. It is a group of local 4-Wheel drive clubs throughout the south-eastern US that have combined forces to create a more sizable and influencial group. They provide the materials, labor and heavy equipment used to maintain the trails and the Forest Service directs the work. If it wasn't for the hard work of this group, no one would be able to ride at Tellico.

This past spring, my club, Windrock ATV Club, went down to Tellico to help with a trash pickup that Southern had organized. We were told that we were the first ATV group to EVER help with the maintenance of the area.

If we want to have access to good riding areas, we have to put in a little effort also.

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(a little joke for everyone that knows HTML)

I agree with you on trail courtesey, if someone comes up on you from behind, pull over and let them by. It's not a race and no one has any money on the line.

The trails belong to everyone, let courtesey rule!

 

Kevin,
Have you noticed that your link to the Windrock ATV Club website doesn't work? For some reason the URL comes up as http://forums.atvconnection.com/www.windrockatv.com. Must be an HTML code problem, need to lose the "forums.atvconnection.com/" part in the link.

Windrock ATV Club

BTW, I agree with your comments about the trail maintenance. It's the clubs that do nearly all the work for everyone's benefit. I am not yet a member of your club, but I do intend to join soon. I have seen the work crews out on the trails in action and appreciate their efforts. Everybody that loves to ride should do something to help support ATVing.

 

Thanks for the heads-up on the link in my signature. I forgot to include http:// in front of the rest so it took it as a relative link insteadof an absolute URL.

We have our meeting this coming Tuesday at the Boy's Clubin OS. Hope to see you there.