Friends And Family Plan
After my solo trip last month to the Brimstone Recreation Area in Huntsville, Tenn., I was ready for a little company on my next voyage, and boy did I get it. We had a total of 13 in our party, nine of whom were all staying in a 3-bedroom, 1-bath rental house. Besides waiting our turn for the bathroom, it worked out wonderfully. For our friends and family spring break trip there was only one logical destination, Evarts Kentucky, where they make you feel like you are part of their family. We were staying again with James White “Po’ Whiteboy” who is not only a great host but a pretty darn good guide as well. Our group consisted of four fathers with five children aged 10 to 14 and two adult couples.
We barely got unloaded before the kids started putting on their gear and getting ready to ride. We started out on some very subdued trails just to get our feet wet, and it is a good thing we did. We not only lost an ATV to illness, but found out that you can actually sleep while driving down the road on your ATV. So after breaking out the extra ATV, which I almost didn’t bring, and tucking our youngest into bed for a nap, we set out on a late afternoon ride to the top of Bald Knob. On the way back down we took time to sit and watch the Jeeps attempting to make it up the wall at the Rock Garden. We had made it through the first day with little or no injury. Our nights consisted of card games and X-BOX 360 playing. I was almost glad that the rain had set in for the night because bedtime was none too early after the many hours of traveling that day.
The next day started out on the lazy side with the rain still coming down. By the time we had eaten lunch, the natives were getting restless, then here came our friends, the Cary brothers and their wives ,to take us on a loop that they had discovered earlier that day behind their rental house on the west side of town. This was probably everyone’s favorite spot on the trip. This was a low traffic area with several creek crossings and ample waterfalls from the rain earlier in the day. After our loop, there was still time left before dark so, of course, we took off for a roundabout trip on the backside of the park, getting back as night fell.
We knew that Saturday was going to be a full day going on an off-park guided ride to Stone Mt., Virginia, so we got to bed somewhat earlier than the night before. That ride takes you about 100 miles and takes 8 to 9 hours to complete under ideal conditions.
The ride was leaving at 9 a.m. sharp and even though the alarm went off at 7, it was a push mobilizing the troops and fueling up the machines. We were the last ones to get to the campground to line up and there were already 35 people waiting to go. If you have ever ridden in a large group before then you know what problems it can present. We moved along at a pretty good clip the first stretch of the trip till we started having over-heating problems caused by all the muddy water splashing up on the radiators. At our stop in Cawood I picked washing out the radiators in the river with a milk jug over topping off the machines with fuel, which later would be an issue.
The boys had done a great job handling the terrain but now as we headed towards Virginia the skill level requirements went up with the elevation. I remember one particular long rocky creek bed that ascended for quite a ways that got to be a real challenge for a couple of the boys. We started falling behind the pace of the leaders and got separated from the pack so we just stopped to have a bite and come to find out the group were just ahead having lunch on an overlook only 5 minutes from where we had stopped. After we rejoined our party, we weren’t even halfway through our journey, and it was after 3p.m.. We made a couple scenic stops that afternoon, one at White Rocks, an overlook down on to highway 58 in Virginia, and another at Fat Man’s Squeeze, a crawl way approximately 100 yards through a rock wall.
As we trekked back towards Evarts we continued having over-heating issues, thank goodness that one of our fellow riders in a Rhino had a weed sprayer with water that we borrowed several times. Since we had missed our fuel stop the gauge was on empty with only 1.5 gallons to share between 2 ATV’s. To add to the nervousness the way home presented several obstacles that would cause some of the group problems, like my boy getting bounced off his ATV going up this huge hill and nothing an erosion rut keeping him and the machine from free falling about 200 feet off of the side.
After that it started getting dark and we were still 25 miles out. The dark didn’t help us get back any sooner with a few wrong turns, one where I thought we had lost Zach for the night. When we knew that it was “ust one of those days,” at 10:45 p.m. someone in our group flipped his Sportsman 80 in a water break leaving him out cold in the middle of the trail. Here we are only 3 miles from the road and they are preparing to lifeline this poor guy out. So I can’t tell you at 10 minutes till midnight how good the pot of Dave’s chilli tasted when we drug ourselves in. Since we had missed the Final Four games we had to settle for the recap on Sportscenter.
The comment my boy made was that “he couldn’t believe what he done on his ATV today,” it had been a crash course and he had gained so much confidence in his and his Quads’s abilities in just one weekend. Even though I had added to my responsibilities, I had also added greatly to my rewards – sharing my time on the trail with my friends and family is definitely the plan I would pick.
