Welcome to the Mudhole's Trail Write-Ups

This is where you play a huge part in making this a great website. Here you'll find write-ups by all of us Jeepers about the trails in our own areas. I'm going to break this section down by area (or state if there is enough input). Find a good trail..send me a write-up about it. Include some directions on where the trail is located, what you encountered on the trail, how you would rate the trail and any pics you may have scanned send them along. One nice thing about running the server off my own 'puter, no ISP screaming about using too much drivespace!!

Southeast

Rocky Run ORV area
Rocky Run is located in the Dry River Ranger district of the George Washington National Forest in the western part of Virginia. A picturesque are that as well as testing your fourwheeling skills, will also give you plenty of chance to take in some of Mother Nature's finest views. The trails here are marked for ATV's and Four-wheelers, so you have to pay attention to make sure you stay on the right trail. Location is about 20 minutes outside of Harrisonburg, Va.

To get to the Rocky Run (and oh how that name fits!) ORV area, head to Harrisonburg, Va and take 33 west out of town. Pay close attention to the hwy signs because there is some construction in town and it’s easy to lose the hwy!!. Go about 10 miles and turn right onto County RD 612. Follow this for a few miles until you get to Forest Service Road 72. The road isn’t marked, but there is a sign at the entrance letting you know that this is the turn-off. It’s 6 miles from this point to the “trailhead”, however the first trail is about ¾ mile up the service road. The area does border private property so pay attention to the “no trespassing” signs. The 2nd trail you come to on the right hand side is Gaulley Ridge. Excellent trail. Very rocky, some mud (I can see this being a really muddy trail in places if the weather has been wet!!). At the trail head there is a nice wide area (we had 5 vehicles in it and still had room) for airing down, hookin’ the tow straps up, etc. The trail starts off as a relatively smooth area and the first stream crossing is about ½ mile into the trail. Once you get to the stream, the trail changes from hardpack clay to rocks. Some big, some small. Nothing that couldn’t be passed with a stock Jeep though, except for one area where the trail runs through the creek bed. It could be passed in a stock vehicle, but the wiser move is to take the roundabout that brings you back to the trail about 100 yards down. It’s quite possible that a stock Jeep could make it through this area, but there are some larger rocks in the stream that you will have to climb and with factory tires, no lift or bars to come down on, I’d think you would wind up with some new body customizing! The guys I was running with were in a Toyota Land Cruiser with 33’s, a Toy pickemup with 35’s, a 4-runner with 35’s, another Toy pickemup with 33’s and a brand new Toy pickemup stone stock and my Jeep of course (stock with little bitty 30” BFG Mud T/A’s). Guessing I would say that the trail was about 6 miles long, with 4 stream crossings and an elevation change of about 1000’ (maybe more, I’m just guessing here). By picking a good line, there was plenty of fun on the trail, and no damage to the Jeep :) Now if you picked a bad line, it could be interesting. There were a couple of new trail customizations done to the 4-runner . The keeper straps only got called in to play when we had to clear a monster tree from the trail. It took us about an hour and a half, maybe 2 to run from the start of the trail to the actually ORV area trailhead. Not counting the time we spent clearing out the monster tree! I’m running open diff’s and the only time I had any tire spin was coming out of one of the stream crossings and the BFG’s wanted to spin on the rock before they grabbed traction. In a couple of areas you run along the ridgeline without much clearance on the sides and a nice view down into the valley. And if you have a passenger with you, you will definitely hear “Keep your eyes on the trail and quit looking around!!” About halfway into the trail, is very nice “campsite” with a solid fire pit that makes for an excellent lunch break. Right beside the stream, which makes a nice scenic break as well. At the end of the trail is the actually ORV area trailhead. There were 4 major trails that branched off from here. We ran part of the Dictum Ridge trail as well, but turned around before reaching the end of it, because of a lack of daylight. Dictum Ridge is a definite “don’t go there with a stock rig” trail, the last part of the trail has rapid major elevation changes and I am definitely looking forward to running it the next time I get down. Which after the fun I had Saturday won’t be too far in the future. I’d like to thank Bob and his son’s for showing me around. Good people even though they drove Toy’s! .. J/J :)

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