Paragon Adventure Park
Hazleton, PA
Sunday, March 24, 2002
Reported by Doug Abrams

It seems that we are going to be making more and more use of Paragon Adventure Park, as it has become one of the places we can be sure is open to legal and challenging ‘wheeling. The park itself is improving weekly, with more and better-marked trails and facilities about to become first class in every way. Pretty soon all the trailheads will be marked as well, and there are plans to improve the access road (necessary for 4-wheelers?) and to make the staging area into a whole compound with buildings, restrooms, a store and all the comforts of any well-established commercial enterprise. There are even lodging facilities in the plans for the future there. We met at the Paragon staging area at 9:00 am, only 6 trucks from LIOR made it. Eric the Red was waiting there when I arrived, a new member on his first ride with LIOR. We definitely hooked him. He had only ‘wheeled in the Pine Barrens of Jersey and other similar sandy wet places; this was his first experience with rock, and it was truly a trial by fire. Eric was driving his red XJ, I was there in the Barkmobile, Scoutmaster Bob was in Howler, Bob Two-jeeps (with Ann Marie) was in his TJ, Rocky Bulldog was there in his YJ, and the group was rounded out by Trevor Frogman, our resident herpetologist, in his beasty CJ. Eric the Red had the most limiting equipment, only a 3” lift, running on 30” BFG AT’s (he does have a winch), and so we decided on keeping to trails with ratings somewhat on the moderate side so he could maximize his first experience . . . right. Foregoing the services of a guide, we took the new and improved trail map of Paragon that they now have, still reminiscent of earthworm tracks across a sheet of paper, and headed out for the trail called Sleepy Hollow. I’m still not sure if we actually ran Sleepy Hollow, some of it seemed slightly familiar, but we had a great run in the morning anyway. Dropping down off Haul Rd required navigating a pretty tricky downhill rock garden, a real eye opener for Eric. This was probably the area called Blueberry Rocks. Both Bobs and Rocky did a great job spotting him through. I have to say, Rocky Bulldog is an outstanding spotter. After coming down through the rock gardens, most of the rest of the morning trail was fairly mellow, you could even get by in 2-wheel drive for a lot, but we did find some neat little hill climbs. I believe we found the Impossible Hill trail loop. Scoutmaster Bob climbed it, followed by Frogman, who proceeded to tear up the trail, rearranging a major obstacle in the process, and eventually pulling cable to get out. Then Two-Jeeps, worked his way up the hill. Bulldog decided hell-with-it when it came time for him to pull cable and backed on down to the main trail, where Eric the Red and I waited and watched the shenanigans on the hill. Here we stopped for lunch right in the middle of the trail, relaxed for about a half hour until a group from Jeeps Unlimited came up behind us and we moved on down the trail. I was pretty sure we had not actually made our way through Sleepy Hollow, and the general thinking at this time was to find a good tough trail. Valley of the Dogs was listed as a “black 2” trail, and so off we went to find it. After pfaffing around, doubling back on ourselves once or twice, I thought I might have found it. Actually, what I found was Rabbit Run, we learned that later, but it was quite the pucker trail there for us, and actually caused us to miss the 4:00 pm closing time by only an hour or so. After rumbling down a pretty steep rocky trail we landed in a flat cleared area, with three different directions to go. Arrows indicated that a trail led off the far end of the little plateau, so I walked over and peered over the edge into a rocky ravine down what appeared to be about a 50 degree slope of scree and loose rock, way too steep to go down. A little further down, at the end of the plateau, the trail dropped over the edge, squeezing between the mountain ridge that rose steeply to the right and the bank that led back up to the plateau on the left, turning to the left as it dropped what felt like straight down. At the bottom, a hard turn to the left round a rather large tree (with no bark left on the side facing the trail), drop down over a few boulders, then a turn to the right and a climb over a few more large rocks took you out to more rock gardens and the rest of the trail. I walked down first to check out the trail. It looked bad, but it looked do-able, so I eased over the edge of the plateau and down the trail. The one thing I didn’t give enough consideration to was the location of that big tree at the bottom of the hill to the left. As I reached the bottom I began to think that this might have been a mistake, as there was no backing up that hill. In order to get around the tree to the left you had to keep pretty hard to the right, which put your passenger side wheels up the slope of the mountain as you turned left and down to make the turn down onto the trail. Let’s see, left front going down, right rear coming up . . . It’s pucker-time!!!!!! Trevor, we all love to wheel with you, but you gotta learn, when you are spotting someone, to call left and right as it appears to the driver, or just point, or even just be quiet, but geez, pal . . . Anyway, with a lot of back and forth, some heavy breathing, some mild perspiration (sounds almost like a good Saturday night), I made the hard left turn down past the tree. Thanks to outstanding spotting by Bulldog, and Trev, really, for getting us all through there. Scoutmaster as counterweight on everyone’s rear right bumper helped too. Eric the Red astounded us all by coming down cleanly in his “under-equipped” XJ (it’s a poor workman who blames the tool), and the Scoutmaster gave us the biggest thrill in Howler as he attained truly remarkable angles of pitch and yaw without rolling. OK, a little tree contact never (seriously) hurt anyone, but it was great to watch. He claims it was because he was wearing too heavy a jacket, but when Bob climbed out of Howler at the bottom of the hill he was mopping the sweat from his brow. Two-Jeeps came down, mashing his license plate bracket on the tree but fundamentally unscathed, and the Bulldog in his top notch YJ with his 4-1 t-case, just walked it down the hill as if there were no difficulties at all. After spotting everyone else down, he had the lines all figured out, and y’gotta give it to him, Rocky’s a pretty good driver . . . for a guy who can barely reach the pedals. At the bottom of this hill the trail turned right and led into a rocky ravine with some mudholes going up the trail between rock gardens. We eased our way through here. By now we realized it was getting late, it was 3:45 and we knew that Paragon wanted us out by 4:00. We weren’t going to make it. Bob reached Kyle Jr. on his cell phone and, after talking with them we learned that we weren’t in the Valley of the Dogs, which is where we were trying to head, but in Rabbit Run. Kyle Jr. found us and led us out to the Turtle Trail, with which we were quite familiar already, and that lead us out to the staging area. I was losing air in my left front, I thought from around the bead as I had bashed the rim pretty badly. (It turns out I had a small hole in the sidewall.) By the time I got out the gas station on Rte 924 I was almost flat. Trev, Bob’s, and Bulldog all trailered their rigs, Eric and I ran down to the gas station to air up and reconnect sway bars; we met there and went to Damon’s Grill in Hazleton for dinner. It wasn’t Jacoby’s but it was pretty good. We hit the road, Scoutmaster took off and we lost him in the haze. On the way home my check engine light came on, turns out my oxygen sensors went bad, but we all made it home just fine. I rolled into my happy home about 11:30 or so. What a great day we all had. No major damage (Two-Jeeps and I both cut tires, some dents, scrapes and mashed plastic, but nothing major at all), no injuries, no broken hearts. So, this is pres Doug saying, until next time (Monster Rock, here we come!) keep it paint up, rubber down, and drive safe!