This year’s ride was a cold and wet one with periods of rain and snow all day after paying to ride, our group as well as Coleworx and many others headed down the mountain to enjoy some of these trails.  The trail conditions were extremely bad because of the amount of rain the area had received during the week prior to the ride. Creeks had become rivers and dry rock ledges were now huge waterfalls.

Almost everyone incurred some type of break or damage but the well built rigs held up to the brutal terrain.

Extreme Roc Rigs was in attendance for the 2010 New Years Day trail ride at Golden Mountain OHV park, (GMP) in Sparta, TN.  Golden Mountain OHV Park is a family oriented recreational area that has over 40 trails on 500 acres for trail riding with ATV’s, Motorcycles, Jeeps, Trucks, and UTV’s.  GMP has pavilions on site that can be rented for get-togethers, family reunions, or to use as shelter for camping. A playground is near the campground so kids can play while dinner is being prepared.  GMP also has a basketball court, volleyball court, and 2 ponds for catch and release fishing.  The park also offers bunk houses and motor home hook-ups for those staying a few days.  GMP is open from 2pm on Friday till 6pm on Sunday.

For the New Years Day Ride GMP was open from Thursday, December 31^st till Sunday January 3^rd.  We arrived at the park on Thursday, December 31^st about 10:30AM.  On Thursday the weather conditions were pretty nasty.  The temperature was about 40 degrees and raining.  The trails had already been saturated with rain from the previous days so we knew we were in for a slick time.  While preparing our Jeeps to trail ride a fellow by the name of Steve asked us if we wanted him to show us around the park.  Since no one in our party had previously been to GMP, we agreed.  We spent Thursday getting to know the park and where all the different trails lead.  Traction was a problem all day.  Just to get from the parking lot to the trailhead of Trail #1 you had to be in 4-wheeldrive.  Not only were the rocks wet but once crossed by a vehicle they were covered in mud.  Some of the least difficult trails were now ones that required aggressive mud tires, lockers front and rear and a winch just to get up.  Since traction was not easily found we stayed on the moderate trails, knowing we had two more days of wheeling planned.

On New Years day we met up with Bryan Cole of ColeWorx and Adam Woodlee of Wide Open Design.  ColeWorX and Wide Open Design both build custom, turn key, high horsepower rock buggies. The details that go into these rigs is imressive as well as their ability to perform.  As the day progressed and the trail difficulty increased parts began to break.  The group split up about mid day when Bryan Cole’s Highlighter decided it needed a new battery.  Over the past few months Bryan has been in the process of replacing his NV4500 transmission with a TH400.  During a winching exercise the battery died due to the Highlighter not being ran.  After finding an extra battery that was being used to run accessories on one of the rigs in our group we got the Highlighter running and to the top of the trail.  The Big Yellow Jeep Scrambler that was behind the Highlighter sat on a new set of 47” Super Swamper LTBs.  While several attempts to climb the stair steps of Trail 13 failed it was time for more aggressive approach.  During this attempt the right front tire found the jagged edge of a rock and punchered a hole large enough to place two thumbs inside the sidewall.  A trail repair was done to the side wall and we headed back to camp to perform a more permanent fix to the large hole.  Once the tire was patched from the inside we all loaded up to find some grub.

On Saturday Extreme Roc Rigs and ColeWorX decided to head to Wheeling in the Country (WITC) which is located in Summertown, TN.  This park has been open for several years but is a park that none of the members of Extreme Roc Rigs had visited before.  Once Bryan found this out he invited us to let him show us around.  We arrived at WITC about 2pm and after a few minor repairs from the previous day we were ready to hit the trails.  WITC is famous for its New Years day trail rides even late on Saturday afternoon there were several hundred vehicles ranging from stock ATVs to highly modified ATVs and VW bugs to custom built ColeWorX rock buggies.  We didn’t get to trail ride as much as we hoped because of a trail repair but we promised the ColeWorX bunch that we would come back so they could give us the full tour.

Last weekend, November 6^th-8^th, Extreme Roc Rigs and members of the Rocket City Rock Crawlers met in Hot Springs, Arkansas at the Superlift ORV to see what the park had to offer.  There were 5 rigs in our group all being locked front and rear with winches up front.  The rigs included XJ Cherokees, 1 YJ Wrangler, 1 LJ Wrangler, a Toyota.  The park was laid out nicely and had a wide range of trails to choose from.  Each trail was labeled with the type of approved vehicle and the trail rating.  The 4X4 trails on the map ranged from 0 to 5 with 0 meaning 4X4 were not allowed to 5 indicating most difficult.  The provided map had some discrepancy on the ratings but nothing that was far off.  Most of the trails had an entrance and exit so you don’t have to worry about a fellow wheeler coming from the opposite direction.

Once everyone arrived at the park we decided to warm up and hit trails rated 2 and 3.  After lunch we started hitting the 3 and 4’s, leaving the 5’s for Sunday.  Before lunch we ran Patriot Pass and Box Canyon.  While on Box Canyon one member of our group got into a delicate situation which called for a slight recovery.  Once the recovery was completed the group finished Box Canyon and met back at the pond for lunch.  After lunch ended we made our way to Slammer and Can Opener both with a rating of 4.  Both of these trails were rocky creek bed types of trails leading to the base of the mountain.  At the base of the mountain we were greeted with a very slick and damp quartz slap of rock.  Slammer did pose any sort of problems for our group however Can Opener was a different story.  At the top of Can Opener was a large ledge. This ledge had to be overcome to proceed on with the trail.   If you went toward the left of the ledge you were tossed off cambered back down the mountain, if you went to the right you were slammed up against a rock face on the passenger side.  We all made it up the trail unassisted using both routes or by a more creative route.  Can Opener was the last trail completed on Saturday and definitely left its mark on some of our rigs.

Sunday we started the day running Buckhorn North, rated 3, over to Concrete Hill and Sardine Ravine.  Buckhorn consisted of a trail at the bottom of two hills that weaved back and forth, up and over the terrain.  At the end of Buckhorn

Gumby on Concrete Hill

North are two trails rated five on the map however the trail marker rated Concrete Hill a 6.  Concrete Hill was made up of several slaps of Arkansas rock that were literally a vertical climb.  Project Gumby and the Toyota truck were both able to make it up without assistance.  The LJ in our group ended up breaking an upgraded Dana 44 driver side rear axle shaft at the base of the trail and winched up the rest.  In addition to the LJ breaking one of the Cherokees in our group developed an electrical problem which caused a 30 amp mini fuse to blowi repeatedly.

After lunch on Sunday one of the Cherokees and the Unlimited loaded up and headed back to town.  The remaining 3 rigs proceeded to Ultimate Adventure, Four Fingers, Greg’s Rock and One Rock at a Time.  Ultimate Adventure is a rated 4 trail that leads to Four Fingers and One Rock at a time. Four Fingers required one rig to winch at the first section of stair steps.  We probably could have been able to negotiate this obstacle however the driver gave it three good attempts and decide it was time to move on up the trail.  At the end of Four Fingers the trail was split between a 3 and 5 rated trail.  Both of these trails did exterior damage to rigs.  Project Gumby suffered from dent where the top of the fender and A pillar meet while the YJ in our group, which was on the 3 rated trail tore the roll cage padding, luckily the soft top was not on the YJ or it would have been completely destroyed.  The next trail on our agenda was One Rock at a Time.  As with most trails in the park the end of the particular trail was a steep hill climb.  Drivers of Gumby and the Toyota decided to try their hand at One Rock at a Time, while the owners of the YJ sat out the last couple of trails.  The hill climb at the end of One Rock at a Time caused us to  pull cable for Gumby to make it up.  The climb was steep and the rocks were covered with rich Arkansas soil which wasn’t giving in to Gumby’s attacks.  After pulling cable to complete  the obstacle the owner of the Toyota decide to take the by pass.   The final trail was Greg’s Rock.  The owners of the YJ decided it was time to go and start cooking some food, so they headed back to camp.  On Greg’s Rock winch cable had to be pulled for our lone Toyota.  Gumby, for some unknown reason, would not start before proceeding to Greg’s Rock so it was left at the base of the trail.  After our Toyota owner was able to finish Greg’s Rock everyone made their way back to Gumby.  By this time Gumby had sat for a while and fired back up and was driven back to camp.

If you haven’t been to the Superlift ORV, 501-625-3600, you need to go.  It’s open Thursday thru Monday from 9-til sunset.  The park is located close to town and the Hot Springs folk are friendly.