My friends and I are from north eastern Indiana and we hit some trails here and do Bundy Hill and once a year go up to silver lake but we are looking for some new places to go riding and thought I might ask for some good reccomendations.

I have seen some people say they like the Baldwin Michigan area. Can anyone make any good recommendations? We don't really like to get into deep mud, more of trail riding and up and down hills here and there.

 

Ever go to Badlands in Attica, IN? I have only been there once several years ago(Easter weekend 2009) but it probably would be closer than anywhere in Michigan. I remember there being a few dunes and lot of nice trails. Decent camping area with electric or hotels nearby if you want to stay there. I'm about a 3 hour drive from there in Southern Illinois. Im actually a little closer to Land Between the Lakes down in Kentucky though. If I ever make another long riding trip, I'd probably rather go there again. It has an easy main loop of about 10-11 miles that anyone can ride on and tons of side trails ranging from scenic and easy to much more difficult. They allow any type of vehicle as well, Badlands does too. So there will be some full size trucks and buggies sharing trails with smaller atvs and dirt bikes. Its probably around 400 miles or so from where you are

 

There are a lot of good trails in central Michigan. I haven't been to any of the trails on the west coast but most of those are for motorcycles only. I have been to other trails northeast of there that are more in the middle of the state and I've been to some in the U.P. too. There is one that I don't plan on going to again and that's West Higgins Lake trail but you probably wouldn't want to go that far anyway. The one time I went there the trail was really tight with bushes growing in on both sides of the trail. A lot of trails have been maintained and widened since then so it might be a good trail now. All the trail maps for the whole state are at the DNR's website. DNR - ORV/ATV Trail Maps

 

you could ride the Leota Trail. its a little north of Harrison . I suggest that you only want to ride after it has rained . very sandy and gets very dusty when dry
DNR - ORV/ATV Trail Maps

 

I have been to Haspin Acres and the Badlands. Both are very good and a lot of fun. We were just trying to find some new good places to go to try some new varieties.

There looks like some amazing places in Tennessee and in the UP, but both are a bit farther than we want to drive.

I saw some cool videos on YouTube of guys doing some beautiful trails in Michigan but don't know where they were and even through the question was asked like a million times in his comments he never replied with where in Michigan it was so I was hoping to get some insight on good trails from someone on here.

I have seen the ORV map and it's a good start but again with a lot of them being dirt bike trails only or other parks that may just be bad, is just feel better getting info from someone who has actually been there. I'm not opposed to finding a place in Ohio or Illinois either, just want something inside a 4.5 hour drive from Fort Wayne, Indiana.

 

I'd forgot about Haspin Acres. I wish it were a little closer to me. There's another place in Southern Indiana in Lynnville called interlake. Never been there but may sometime. Ill report back if i do. I'm about a 2 hour drive from there. Just falls within the 4.5 hour drive you stated from Fort Wayne. Says it has 50 miles or trails, that's not too bad. Also says you can fish and hunt there too. I've never really been to a park that was bad, its just some don't have many miles of trails. Driving several hours would be a disappointment if you could ride all the trails in 2 hours. Windrock down in TN looks like a great place to go but far away. Hatfield and McCoy system would be like a bucket list trip but also far away.

 

Some of the trails connect to other trails so you can ride for hours and hours as long as you have gas. Leota trail connects to Denton Creek trail which connects to St. Helen trail which connects to Ogemaw Hills trail which connects to Ambrose Lake trail which connects to Rose City trail which connects to The Meadows trail which connects to Bull Gap trail which connects to Huron trail which goes to within a few miles of Oscoda. From Leota to the Oscoda area is about 1/2 the width of the Lower Peninsula and it's very close to 100 miles by car but much longer by trail. You could ride for hundreds of miles by the time you get back.

 

We did the Mio and Bull Gap trails a few years back and had a great time there, nice trails.

 

One of my friends has a cabin north of Mio. It's in a county where you can ride ATVs on the shoulder of the road so we ride the roads until we get to The Meadows trail. We ride all over that but hardly ever cross M-33 to the Bull Gap trails where we used to ride most of the time.

We've swung down to the Rose City trail a couple of times and we take a lot of quick trips down the Mio trail to Muskrat Lake which is really close to the cabin. Sometimes people are camping or fishing and we go just to see what's happening and take a beer break. We never go on the north part of the loop of Mio trail because you have to chop a lot of branches off or have a hard time going through them. One of the tornadoes that went through the area messed that up.

Bull Gap still has a hill climb but they made a rule that after you go up the hill you can't turn around and go back down. You have to take a trail from the top of the hill that loops around to the bottom of the hill. It's the only place I know of that has a decent hill climb.

P.S. there are over 3,000 miles of trails in Michigan if you count the motorcycle only trails. Most of them I've been on were good trails. In the spring Gladwin trail has some mud if that's what you're looking for. It's in the Molasses River flood plain and it dries up later on but in spring it's wet.

 

I just wanted to point out that most trails are loops but Huron trail is an out and back type of trail. The maps say it's 36 miles plus another 9 miles down the Sand Lake spur so the whole trip is 90 miles. AFAIK you can still get gas at The Dam Store near the Foote dam on the east end of the trail. I know you aren't likely to go that far east CALL911 but wanted you to be aware of it just in case. Huron trail is also a snowmobile trail in the winter so it's nice and wide. You can probably average 30 MPH on it but only 15-20 MPH on a lot of the other trails that are maintained at 50 inches wide.