Over Memorial Day, my buddy Andy set up a bit more of an "overland" trip than our usual weekend camping/technical 4x4 trips that are mostly centered on finding challenging terrain. This one was more of a 4x4 cruise and 3 days of camping, to see some nice areas and find some great roads. For the route, we did the southern section of the Mid-Atlantic Backcountry Discovery Route (which was made for dual-sport bikes, primarily) and then did part of the route used in 24 Hours of Appalachia, plus a few side routes to see things or check out cool roads. Not much technical wheeling here, it was mostly fire roads, forest roads, and rural highways. Could have probably done 95% of it in a regular car with good tires, in truth.
Three of us met up in Damascus, Va where the trail starts. This is a 5-6 hour drive for me in the Raider down awful Rt. 81, dodging tractor-trailers with no cruise control (more on that later, by the way). There were 5 or 6 folks planning to show up, but a couple bailed last-second and one was running late. Andy had gone down earlier to find someplace to set up camp, and found a little clearing deep in some woods that was very scenic, but also pretty much only big enough for 2 vehicles (his is big, mine is small).
The spot was apparently a local dump site for trash, so Andy had already filled up a big bag of crap people left there, which sucks. After leveling the truck a bit, set up camp and waited for WIll to show up. He ended up just parking in the entrance trail and sleeping in his cot-tent since there was no space to fit the Tacoma in there.
It was a chilly evening (I slept all weekend on my interior platform since sometimes I'm too lazy to do the tent setup) and some of my minor improvements in the rig made for some better sleeping than previous trips. Woke up and made some coffee
Day 1 for me was 370 miles, almost all of it paved / highway.
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Then we hit the road, criss-crossing the Applalachian trail and finding some great forest roads. I'll mention that Andy and I both do competition stage rally, so going quick on gravel roads through the woods is what we like to do. It's a bit different in big/loaded trucks with tires aired down a bit (for ride quality). The Raider's suspension isn't exactly sporty, but we definitely did some good corner-carving lol
We also saw plenty of the results of the storms last fall, still a ton of wrecked bridges, temporary bridges, and recently-rebuilt roads near rivers and streams
But otherwise, plenty of scenery
A bit later we headed up Whitetop Mountain, which at 5500 ft is the 2nd highest peak in Virginia (and the highest you can get without hours of hiking). Was a great view of the Appalachians from up there, and a few folks were camped right up near the peak as well
Later in the day while crossing over a mountain after 20 minutes of fairly rough road, we came across about 40 people on horses with beers, some of which clearly had downed several already. A few of the ladies in the group were pretty amusing (I won't go into detail, there may be children present) but we eventually got by them with some funny stories for the campfire.
A few other random pics from our way up, as we tried to meet up with the 4th in our party, coming from up North.
As we slogged north, mike was sent to find a campsite. It being Memorial Day, he had some trouble finding anyplace good and ended up just getting a site in a state forest campground (which was oddly empty) near Potts Mountain. So we had a bit more space that night
So on Day 2 we did 238 miles total, probably half paved/half unpaved I'd say.
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The next morning we continued South and then North through Jefferson National Forest, up through Clifton Forge, up on some ridgelines...
Then back down into town for gas
And headed down an offshoot route down a river road. This one was marked as a 3-4 rating for 4x4s due to a bunch of river crossings, the largest of which is apparently usually around 3 ft deep. It was definitely drier this time and we did a lot of rough driving on dry streambeds, and the main crossing was probably no more than 18-24" I'd guess.
There was a little playground area with a nice view near that so we messed a round for a few minutes
Around then, MIke pulled over while we were 20 miles from any town on a little forest road. Turns out his left rear caliper had been dragging for some time and was bare pad backing to the rotor making a racket. So he clamped the line off with some vise grips and we abandoned our last two trails to head into the nearest town to find some pads (harder than expected since he has ZJ brakes). But ghe found some and we changed the pads in the parking lot
Behind schedule now, we just jumped on the highway and hauled for 90 minutes, to Monongehela National Forest. The plan was to camp at the old Mine there, which is a "dark area" with a bunch of cool campsites and views. Also neat because it has about a million Red Spruce trees there, so looks more like the PNW than Virginia. Unfortunately, after going 10 miles around the roads, every campsite was already full (apparently there was a mountain bike race there that day)
But we eventually found a big open spot right as it was getting dark (defintely only 4x4 accessible) and got set up, made some dinner and a good fire, and rode out some light rain through the evening without seeing any of the hoped-for clear stargazing.
On Day 3 we did 273 miles, about half-and-half.
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In the morning we were woken up by damn bear hunters with their dogs on their loud pickups at 6am, so that was annoying. Plus everything was wet at misty, so a sloppy breakfast and pack up.
We cruised up to the high vantage points, but it was pretty foggy so not much to see
And then down into a nearby valley lake area
After another 2 hours of forest roads at high speeds, the guys headed north (they live in Maryland) and I bailed out east to head home via the West Va. Superhighway (Rt 55 IIRC), which has some nice views as well.
So last day was 127 miles (plus another 180 or so on the highway going home).
On the upside, while messing with stuff in the Raider on the way home, I found out the cruise control WORKS. IDK if it didn't work before, or if I just never bothered to check but that's cool. It's 80s cruise-control, so it just holds the pedal at a set throttle (not a set speed), so depending on where you set it, you may end up going 100mph down a mountain or bogging in 5th going up one lol. Really only useful if you're on a fairly flat highway (which I generally wasn't)
Got home and did the clean=out of 4 days of dust and mud....
Overall, the Raider did great, averaged about 15mpg all told (the other guys were more like 10), and some of my recent improvements to my camping setup worked well. I still have some other ideas to do as well, but overall a fun trip and not too difficult, with very little drama and a ton of amazing scenery.
Three of us met up in Damascus, Va where the trail starts. This is a 5-6 hour drive for me in the Raider down awful Rt. 81, dodging tractor-trailers with no cruise control (more on that later, by the way). There were 5 or 6 folks planning to show up, but a couple bailed last-second and one was running late. Andy had gone down earlier to find someplace to set up camp, and found a little clearing deep in some woods that was very scenic, but also pretty much only big enough for 2 vehicles (his is big, mine is small).
The spot was apparently a local dump site for trash, so Andy had already filled up a big bag of crap people left there, which sucks. After leveling the truck a bit, set up camp and waited for WIll to show up. He ended up just parking in the entrance trail and sleeping in his cot-tent since there was no space to fit the Tacoma in there.
It was a chilly evening (I slept all weekend on my interior platform since sometimes I'm too lazy to do the tent setup) and some of my minor improvements in the rig made for some better sleeping than previous trips. Woke up and made some coffee
Day 1 for me was 370 miles, almost all of it paved / highway.
--------
Then we hit the road, criss-crossing the Applalachian trail and finding some great forest roads. I'll mention that Andy and I both do competition stage rally, so going quick on gravel roads through the woods is what we like to do. It's a bit different in big/loaded trucks with tires aired down a bit (for ride quality). The Raider's suspension isn't exactly sporty, but we definitely did some good corner-carving lol
We also saw plenty of the results of the storms last fall, still a ton of wrecked bridges, temporary bridges, and recently-rebuilt roads near rivers and streams
But otherwise, plenty of scenery
A bit later we headed up Whitetop Mountain, which at 5500 ft is the 2nd highest peak in Virginia (and the highest you can get without hours of hiking). Was a great view of the Appalachians from up there, and a few folks were camped right up near the peak as well
Later in the day while crossing over a mountain after 20 minutes of fairly rough road, we came across about 40 people on horses with beers, some of which clearly had downed several already. A few of the ladies in the group were pretty amusing (I won't go into detail, there may be children present) but we eventually got by them with some funny stories for the campfire.
A few other random pics from our way up, as we tried to meet up with the 4th in our party, coming from up North.
As we slogged north, mike was sent to find a campsite. It being Memorial Day, he had some trouble finding anyplace good and ended up just getting a site in a state forest campground (which was oddly empty) near Potts Mountain. So we had a bit more space that night
So on Day 2 we did 238 miles total, probably half paved/half unpaved I'd say.
-------
The next morning we continued South and then North through Jefferson National Forest, up through Clifton Forge, up on some ridgelines...
Then back down into town for gas
And headed down an offshoot route down a river road. This one was marked as a 3-4 rating for 4x4s due to a bunch of river crossings, the largest of which is apparently usually around 3 ft deep. It was definitely drier this time and we did a lot of rough driving on dry streambeds, and the main crossing was probably no more than 18-24" I'd guess.
There was a little playground area with a nice view near that so we messed a round for a few minutes
Around then, MIke pulled over while we were 20 miles from any town on a little forest road. Turns out his left rear caliper had been dragging for some time and was bare pad backing to the rotor making a racket. So he clamped the line off with some vise grips and we abandoned our last two trails to head into the nearest town to find some pads (harder than expected since he has ZJ brakes). But ghe found some and we changed the pads in the parking lot
Behind schedule now, we just jumped on the highway and hauled for 90 minutes, to Monongehela National Forest. The plan was to camp at the old Mine there, which is a "dark area" with a bunch of cool campsites and views. Also neat because it has about a million Red Spruce trees there, so looks more like the PNW than Virginia. Unfortunately, after going 10 miles around the roads, every campsite was already full (apparently there was a mountain bike race there that day)
But we eventually found a big open spot right as it was getting dark (defintely only 4x4 accessible) and got set up, made some dinner and a good fire, and rode out some light rain through the evening without seeing any of the hoped-for clear stargazing.
On Day 3 we did 273 miles, about half-and-half.
----
In the morning we were woken up by damn bear hunters with their dogs on their loud pickups at 6am, so that was annoying. Plus everything was wet at misty, so a sloppy breakfast and pack up.
We cruised up to the high vantage points, but it was pretty foggy so not much to see
And then down into a nearby valley lake area
After another 2 hours of forest roads at high speeds, the guys headed north (they live in Maryland) and I bailed out east to head home via the West Va. Superhighway (Rt 55 IIRC), which has some nice views as well.
So last day was 127 miles (plus another 180 or so on the highway going home).
On the upside, while messing with stuff in the Raider on the way home, I found out the cruise control WORKS. IDK if it didn't work before, or if I just never bothered to check but that's cool. It's 80s cruise-control, so it just holds the pedal at a set throttle (not a set speed), so depending on where you set it, you may end up going 100mph down a mountain or bogging in 5th going up one lol. Really only useful if you're on a fairly flat highway (which I generally wasn't)
Got home and did the clean=out of 4 days of dust and mud....
Overall, the Raider did great, averaged about 15mpg all told (the other guys were more like 10), and some of my recent improvements to my camping setup worked well. I still have some other ideas to do as well, but overall a fun trip and not too difficult, with very little drama and a ton of amazing scenery.
