JK-Rubi

Seven JK forum members from AL and GA met at an offroad park in Jacksonville, AL. Had a great ride, and it wasn't too wet until the drive back home when the bottom fell out - we were sprinkled on a bit while on the trail, but nothing real bad. Really enjoyed meeting up with the GA folks, and of course riding with bama and RedRecon.

Choccolocco ORV Park is basically a mountain that you can ride around on - up, down, across the top, around the park boundary. Not a Tellico, but not horrible either - there are a few trails we skipped due to the wet conditions that I'd like to try if I go back, but trail topography didn't vary a whole lot, and many looked as though they were recent additions (bulldozed). Overall, not bad for a "young" ORV park.

Starting at the Campsite


On top via Scenic View


Breakfast of Champions


Tombstone Trail


Descending Boundary Line. The trespassing sign is directed to hunters coming from the National Forest adjacent to the park.


DJ in Mud Puddle


x2 except this time RedRecon


TINMAN tangled up on what I thought was a waterbreak, but it was an obstacle "blocking" a dead-end trail. Owner said he'd build it back up so it was more apparent to future trail users.


Lined up along the trail


Spinning a little mud on the edge of The Swamp


Bama and RedRecon

JK-Rubi

RedRecon snapped these shots. I was in the lead and ended up "exploring" a Level 5 trail called The Wall (yeah, it was exactly like it sounds - a rock wall that buggies rollover attempting to climb). It looked like we could "bail-out" by taking one of two bottom trails that accessed The Wall, but turns out both arteries were intentionally blocked (they led to National Forest land), so we turned around to head back up the top access. The trail however, had basically been a stream several days earlier and was soaked.

I got up a bit, but started digging in - the four of us that dropped down into this gully had to winch ourselves back out. That was an interesting two hours. Got to "break-in" my new Superwinch EPi9.0S even though that was not on my agenda for this trip.

This looks bad, but I wasn't stuck in the sense that I couldn't move - because of the steepness of the incline, I could roll back, but I could not drive forward. If I'd kept digging, I'm sure I would have eventually been truly stuck.


GA guys were great helping with the winching process - something tells me this wasn't their first time dragging themselves out of trouble. Good news is that with a winch, you definitely have more options out on the trails.

Gravel Gertie

Any day playing in a Jeep is a great day. It looks like you had one. Thanks for sharing.

RDY4RKS

Looks like a lot of fun. And looks like someone got to test out their winch.

pkess3

Looks like a nice place to wheel.

mikeyfl

looks like a good time!

dburgette

That looks like fun! I agree with the earlier post any day is a good day on the trail.

pearl-drum-man

Cool looking trail!

postman

looks like a good day out

JK-Rubi

Yup, good ride with a great group of guys - although as I mentioned above, had to utilize the winch much sooner than I was planning.

In fact, that's one of the reasons we used the snatch block. Due to all the recent rain storms at home, I had only spooled the synthetic line on by hand when installing while inside the garage (and without being able to put the rope under load). When I actually had to use the line, I was concerned about the initial rope coils around the spool not being tight and therefore potentially susceptible to damage from the "top" layers being placed under heavy stress (i.e., the top layers may have abraided the lower layers by "digging" in between the loose coils). Using the snatch block "forced" us to unspool most of the line in order to reach the anchor tree in the left of the pic.