Long Island Off Road Trail Ride

Down at the Big Y we found Mikey B and Yaron waiting for us. After waiting for Spare-Parts Badgely for over a half an hour we decided to head out for the trail at about 10:15. Altogether there were five trucks: me in the Barkmobile, Mark Silverback in his YJ Snow White , Bulldog, with Angela and Kaiser the Insane Puppy, in his Red YJ, Mike in his YJ e-Jay, and Yaron in his CJ.

We hit the trailhead at about 10:30, aired down, and started down the trail with Rocky in the lead. We rolled down to the xxxxxx, turned xxx and wound our way back up to xxxx Road. Once again, I ran into a problem with my Ox-lock, which was only functioning intermittently (when I didn’t really need it). About half-way back up to County Rd. there’s a point where the trail climbs a steep incline and turns hard to the left at the top. There is a large rock in the middle of the trail and a tree on the right, causing a pretty tight squeeze. I had a problem here when Two-Jeeps and I scouted the trail, and, sure enough, had the same problem here again. If my front locker had been working, maybe no problem, because I just couldn’t get up over the rock without laying against the tree. We pulled cable here, and I winched up over the rock, after which the sailing was smoother.

When Bob Two-Jeeps and I scouted the trail a few weeks ago it took us about three hours. But then, we were poking along, checking out side trails and generally taking it easy. By noon, in an hour and a half, we had closed the loop back up to County Road. This trail is interesting. You definitely need to be locked up to do the tail but there aren’t any truly hairy obstacles that threaten much damage. It does take some skill to negotiate certain portions of it, some is just having the right equipment. We pulled off to the side of the road and stopped for lunch here, but didn’t laze around too much as the bugs were persistently annoying. We decided to go check out the Radio Tower Trail in the afternoon. It runs off the Mohawk Trail right at the crest of the mountain, after climbing up the hair-pin turn.

We rolled back into North Adams and then up xxxx to the top of the mountain, where we turned off for the trail. A well-graded dirt road runs in for about 1/4 mile, until you get to a xxxxx, where the road turns to trail and winds off into the woods. The trail was mainly a series of muddy, boggy holes one after another. Those who love mud would like this trail, lots of opportunities to try to sink your rig into a bottomless pit of ooze. Along here Silverback snagged a large branch with his rear wheels, and by the time he’d shed himself of it, it had snapped his rear brakeline. After about a half-hour stop to try to repair, he just clamped it off and we went on down the trail. As we came over the other side of the mountain the trail did get a little more interesting, with a few notable obstacles for us to descend. It would be really interesting to run this trail the other way, because climbing those obstacles would make this into quite a worthy trail, maybe even push its rating up from a low three to a low four (of five).

There was one obstacle in particular, which Rocky said reminded him a little of Tellico. The trail dropped away, down a series of rock ledges. As you came over the edge you had to stay a little to the right or your left wheels would drop over the edge for a sure tumble down to the inverted position in an unplanned manner. I was leading at this point and waited for Bulldog to trot ahead of me for a spot down. Was a little puckery, and was puckery to watch people come over the edge. This would be cool one to climb on a return trip.

At this point I had only a vague idea of where in the space of the universe we were actually located. I knew the trail came out to developed road somewhere up behind Whitcomb Summit, or in the Florida area anyway, so we just kept rolling along the trail hoping to find some direction from our environment. Finally we hit graded road, and heading southwest (generally toward North Adams) we soon hit paved road and then there was Rte 2, the Mohawk Trail, just a couple of miles up from the downhill to the Hairpin Turn. We pulled off to air up and reconnect, and the rain started to come for real. Mike B. and Yaron took off, as they had to retrieve their tow rigs and were heading back to N.Y. right away. Mark, Bulldog and I all headed back to the campground, hoping to get our fire started before everything became too wet.

Rocky had brought a canopy we set up over the table, I had a huge tarp we managed to hang between some trees to create a somewhat dry area for dinner. I packed up a lot of my stuff while John and Mark prepared dinner (threw meat on the fire) as I had to get up and out early in the morning to make the Region D meeting in Brookfield, Ct. by 10:00 am (I made it there by 10:45 . . . not too bad). Only one mistake was made that evening; Rocky built the fire upwind from the tarp, so in order to stay dry under the tarp you had to sit in the smoke of a wet fire . . . cough cough hack hack. The smoke chased poor old Bark the Jeep Dog out into the rain more than once in the evening. By 10:00 pm or so I had had it, so Bark and I crawled off to bed, and drifted off to the pounding of rain on my tent walls. By morning the rain had abated, but enough water was still falling from the trees to be as if it were still raining. Few things more disgusting than packing up a wet campsite. I still haven’t had a chance to set my tent up to dry. I know it’ll be a mass of black mildew goo by the time the weather clears en0ugh to dry it out. Even though the weekend petered out into a soggy mess, the trails were great fun and the companionship worth every minute of ooze. Until the next trip you haul your lazy butt out to, this is the Poobah, signing off with the age-old advice to remember to keep it paint up, rubber down.