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Loaded up the truck, and took off at 3:00am on Sunday morning for the 13 hour drive down to Gilbert, West Virginia with moto on my mind.
We stayed the entire week at Twin Hollow campground in Gilbert WV. They have spacious campsites and cabins availible for a good price. We stayed in a cabin. Fully furnished with microwave, stove, fridge, air conditioning, TV with DVD player (no cable), bathroom and comfortable sleeping for four. The view out the porch of the cabin alone was almost worth the 12 hour drive. Wayne and his wife Donna live on the Twin-Hollow campground, and they are some of the niciest people you will ever meet. They really go the extra mile for their customers, and it shows.
(I apologize for the terrible photos. My Canon finally gave up the game on the 3rd day of the trip, but all photos taken before that have some artifacts.)
The advantage to staying at Twin Hollow, (other than the great view, and fantastic cabins) is the direct access to the Browning Fork trail system. No loading up the bikes to drive to the trailhead. Just start them up, and ride right onto trail 12. ATV's and dirtbikes can be ridden through town, and from the campgrounds, there is a nice tame trail into town.
The Trails
Amazing. All trails are VERY well labelled. The map is updated almost every month, and the trails are inspected almost daily. All of the trails (with the exception of the single track which I'll talk about later) are made so at least one quad can go through them. If your riding a dirtbike, it gives you a number of lines to choose.
The green trails (easy) we're pretty tame, but whooped out quite a bit. Some of the bumps you could jump like it was a MX track, and others would just jar your fillings loose.
The blue trails (more difficult) we're wide, groomed and usually consisted of a number of switchbacks and some fairly steep climbs and decents. A few trails had a lot of loose rocks on them which make them more challenging. Many of the uphill (and downhill) switchbacks had berms built into them, so on a dirtbike you can rip up the hill, slide it around and rip right up the next section without downshifting.
The black trails (most difficult) we're also pretty wide, but it was a crapshoot for what you might find over every crest. On trail 22 I crested a hill, looked down and had to stop to see if what I was about to go down was even the trail. Nothing but loose rocks about the size of a bowling ball and bigger at a pant-crapping grade. Midway down the I found a tree down across the trail. Since this was the "black" trail, the maintainers simply stacked some rocks on both ends of the fallen tree, so you could easily ride over it. Going down a 60% grade of loose boulders while trying to get your front wheel over a 4 ft fallen tree without meeting the sausage creature gave me enough adrenaline to last the rest of the day.
Trail Saftey
All green, blue and black trails are actually two-way, so if you had a blast going down a trail, you could always turn around and do it the other way. Keeping alert while riding is a must, as oncoming quads and bikes we're easy to see, but even easier to forget about while your holding on for dear life down some of the mountians. Some roads we're shared-use by coal, and pipeline companies, so every now and then you'd see a big truck inching its way up and down the trails (all shared road trails we're marked with big orange signs).
ALL of the trails are built wide, but are literally cut into the side of the mountian. On the blue and black trails I found myself zooming over some waterbars looking left over a 300+ft drop to the valley below. One wrong bump or mis-application of the throttle could send you over the edge, and on many of the trails, going over the edge didn't mean 2 hours of bike retrieval, it meant death or dismemberment. It was riding on the edge, literally.
Singletrack
Myself and my buddy glenn we're going to attempt trail 148 on Friday, but a pinch-flat up front and a couple hours of pushing the bike through the woods ended the thought. I can only tell you what I saw, and what the locals conveyed to me.
The singletrack is nasty. By definition, 12" of path, with 24" of clearance up top for bars. The uphill climbs are so steep, the trail-workers laid cinderblocks all the way up the hill so riders could actually get UP the hills. Much of the singletrack rides on the "spine" of the mountians, so half of the ride is on rock ledge, with 150-200 foot drops on either side. Dropoff's 4-6 feet in height are commonplace throughout, and the trails wind up and down the highest, most agressive terrain on the mountians. I talked to a local kid at a KTM dealership in Gilbert who has lived and ridden Hatfield McCoy his entire life, and he said "I done tried it once, turned around, and I'll never try it again". Next year I will try it for sure, but it is a "Orange Diamond" trail. Don't try it unless your willing to see it through. I found this photo online which helps illustrate just how steep some of the climbs are.
single track trail pictures from off roading photos on webshots
single track trail pictures from off roading photos on webshots
320 miles covered on my 520SX in six days. The trails we're like nothing I've ever experianced before. Moto all day, steaks burgers and beer all night, and we only rode the 115 miles of Browning Fork trails. There is still Pinnacle, and the Buffalo mountian trails sytems we didn't go to. Next year....
All in all? I give it a 5 out of 5. Something for everyone. Beginner, advanced and expert riders alike, you will all get a challenge out of the trails. If you've got time to kill, with dirty-moto on your mind, set aside some time and check it out. Its the deals-gap of east-coast trail riding.
Pearsall, out.
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Originally Posted by rmbbikes
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