Maine riding > the Hatfield/McCoy?

[OldGuyonaQuad]

We are looking for our next place for an ATV road trip (this side of the Mississippi) and my brother's one friend told him if he liked Hatfield McCoy he would love Maine. IDK why but for some reason I picture lots of rocks and mountains like NEPA. I checked riderplanet and there are some nice sized places that boast 50 miles of trails but for the 10 + hour drive I'm thinking H/Mc is the better option?

Anyone here been to both?

[CJM]

If its anything like that one ride we took in hazelton or how bad treverton can be rock wise Id stay away.

Id rather go to Hatfield or my preference dunes somewhere.

Im using this site as my planner. Maybe this summer I will try to hit little sahara in OK. http://www.dirtwheelsmag.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=2DC4925D63F5419CBDA1FCCC0D242D90

[JACK STRAW]

i took my 2 sons down th HF this year and it was awesome. the rocks beat the crap out of me but the trails were great and had a lot offer. the black diamonds were the most fun. the 400ex's to a trx300 4x4 worked great. we go up to maine every year to brownville junction and if you go, look for K.I riders club. the only small engine shop in the town is where i found out about them. a man named mike in that shop started it.they use the logging trails. they were not marked and you are in the boonies.we go to our cabin up there and only brought the bikes up once. with hatfield being a little closer i probobly won't bring the bikes up to maine anymore.you do have to get the bikes registered in maine which was not a big deal.

[OldGuyonaQuad]

Jack thanks for the feed back I think all things being equal I would drive the extra couple of hours round trip for Hatfield McCoy and a known quantity.


Marc you haven't really seen enough of Trevorton to give it a fair rating. I didn't know my way around well enough when we went up there together. The ride to the whaleback from smurf's pond is a nice 15 minute ride (w/o stops and decent speed) with a nice mix of coal roads, hills, packed flat rocks (not jagged and protruding from the surface) & sand.

JTQuad runs trips out west to Utah and The Glamis Dunes in California. I think I would prefer Utah for the 1600 miles of trails versus the wide openness of the dunes. Plus my brother says that ridding in sand isn't good for your machine. He charges $600 per quad (+ riding gear and luggage) so that will run $1200-$1500.

I think your crew would really enjoy the trails there and the towns are incredibly ATV friendly. You have to be careful though some of those turns are really tight with steep cliffs and no room for two way traffic.

I will post something up once we decide where we are going and as always your crew is more then welcome to join us or let me know what you are planning if you want some older company to slow you down ;) .

[JACK STRAW]

i have never been to pa for riding. saw some impressive videos on utube.we are looking for good hill climbing that is a couple of hours from pole tavern ,nj . i wish some one who liked 4 wheelers had the cash to buy the old port elizebeth pits and open them back up. so instead we will be making more trips o hf this year.pocohantis trails is where we went last year.

[CJM]

Its the dust and rocks that bother me, dust is worse than the sand dust I ride in.

Like I been telling ya Tom Im spoiled with the area I go to. Also the ride is enormous for us 3.5 hrs is a LONG time to be in a car, specially since I cant make a trip out of it due to working on saturdays :(

Im spoiled
:devil:

Im tryin to get a Hatfield trip going this spring and possibly doing a uhaul box truck run with quads this summer to little sahara or maybe utah IDK.

[lonnie1977]

I was at Little Sahara OK in 08. Loved it!. I love a good road trip so driving there wasn't bad. It was 24 hours straight through. Would be hard to do in a box truck. On the plains we were doing 90 mph plus. Area in OK is small compared to the mountains we ride in PA. Could cover the perimeter in 45 min taking it easy. But there is nothing like riding in the dunes. I hope to be back up and running in the spring Tom. Have a kid coming in June so it might be rough till the fall. I'll keep an eye out on here to see when your heading up to the coal hills. Have a good Holiday guys.

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm141/lonnie1977/Picture159_zpsf586221b.jpg

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm141/lonnie1977/Picture104_zps1942351d.jpg

It gets dark in the desert at night.

[CJM]

Looks like fun riding Lonnie. Are there trails and stuff there or just the dunes? That was one of the reasons I also wanted to check out Utah, they got a mix of trails and dunes.

Box truck dont bother me, much better than tearing up our vehicles wasting 3x as much gas. A ryder truck will go about 75mph anyways and then I can lock the quads in there if need be vs leaving them on a trailer or something.

[lonnie1977]

Mostly dunes but there are tree areas that have some trails. You can ride into town as well. I'll post up more pics tonight.

[CJM]

Sounds cool :) Im itching to try and find soem dunes with trails too. But it seems Im on the wrong side of the country lol.

oh btw congrats on the baby :)

[lonnie1977]

Thanks Mark.

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm141/lonnie1977/Picture106_zps0d68db2f.jpg

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm141/lonnie1977/Picture145_zps30420cb2.jpg

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http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm141/lonnie1977/Picture166_zps40e1861f.jpg

http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm141/lonnie1977/Picture169_zps155302bb.jpg

[CJM]

quite welcome.

The dunes look awesome. I gotta go to some sorta dunes this summer if funds allow.

HF-McCoy is a definite tho. Prob swap out my LT link for my ST stuff and put my big swinger skid back on the EX and take that over the R too. R is not really gonnalike those rocks i hear they got there.

[OldGuyonaQuad]

Lonnie grats to you and the Mrs. BTW your life is over as you know it ;)

Thanks for sharing the pics looks like a blast.

Marc you would get the same gas mileage in a box truck rental as you would a motor home and they charge you so much per mile. I think my brother and I would pack up the motor home and head to Utah if we had 2-3 other guys that we were comfortable enough to travel with to help split the expenses. We might even be down with just taking the diesel with a trailer and just get a cheap hotel.

Let me know if you have serious interest as the time grows nearer and maybe we can get a nice group together.

BTW I am on vaca through the New Year we are heading up to Trevorton next Friday for a day ride if you guys are off let me know.

20 years at my job this year so I get 4 weeks vac and 5 personal days. The wife only gets 2 weeks so at least one of those weeks will be a quad trip.

[CJM]

Not sure what I am up too. I might be working that day IDK, could use the cash.

As for the trip, all depends on how much it costs. I know renting a truck as a good way to do it way back when but not so sure anymore due to gas costs. Still, it couldnt be anymore $ than renting a motor home as well IDK. If I did go and had enough guys its either we went the box truck (locking all the stuff inside appeals to me) or doing a motor home with hitch and taking a huge landscape trailer.

Course if I can convince my buddy we could just take his crewcab frontier which would be super ideal. my truck I wouldnt take, waiting for it to blow these days.

[punk rock kiel]

the rockhouse trails at hatfield blow.
we just made a trip to kentucky which was fun riding compared to trevorton but trevorton is what im use to, so rocks and dust are fine by me.
we rode one day in kentucky and on a 4 stroke, i had to get gas just to get home on one trail system, so prolly easy 120 mile trip.

[OldGuyonaQuad]

IDK Kiel Marc and his crew might actually like Rockhouse. They seam to prefer the tight winding trails. I know you like the wide open fire/coal roads that you can ride 2-3 across and run ballz to the wall and not have to worry about oncoming traffic. Definitely not the case @ Rockhouse. If you come around the corner to fast and someone else is there at there at the same exact time someone (or both) is going over a cliff.

The trails do become somewhat predictable after a while with the same series of turns and bends as you climb and descend. all of that said I would go back. For me a big part of the attraction was the scenery and ATV friendly towns as well as the trails. I just take my time on the turns ;)

Kentucky might be an option, it would cut the trip to Utah by more then half. The Paiute trails are 2200 miles one way. The motor home gets about 7mpg so even if you estimated on the low end with gas @ $3.50 per gallon on average works out to be $2200. My brothers diesel would run us about $800 but it only seats two.

Harlan Kentucky is about 600 miles (Kiel where in Ky. did you go?) so in the motor home that would be about $600 & in the truck about $250.

IDK about you but I am going ot start sreiously looking at KY with WV open as an option.

[punk rock kiel]

we were in harlan, we are thinking of going to the same place again this year. it was a good stay. locals are nice, no cell phone reception unless you rode 30 minutes to the top of the mtn (thats a real vacation), zip line place at the trail head was great. we met up with 2 locals thru a banshee site and they took us on one hell of a tour to the highest point in kentucky (like 4900ft or so). we had a great time.
trevorton is perfectly fine in my eyes but if you ride somewhere thats no dust or rocks all the time, your gonna hate alot of other places.

[trailhouseowner]

Anyone needing info on any of the HM Trails, give us a call! We have been helping riders since 2002 and are very knowledgeable.

[OldGuyonaQuad]

Originally posted by trailhouseowner
Anyone needing info on any of the HM Trails, give us a call! We have been helping riders since 2002 and are very knowledgeable.

John?

[trailhouseowner]

Sorry, not John. This is Marty of Browning Fork Trailhouse.

Since we were the pioneers of the lodging business, we have a wealth of knowledge. We were the first to provide lodging to riders, therefore, we have helped thousands of riders over the years by directing them in the right direction and answering any questions that they had.