New user from East TN

I am new to the forum, but not new to being outside. I have just finally aquired a 4x4 atv. I intend on using it... a lot. It is a 87 honda fourtrax foreman 350. I bought it with a broke valve and completely rebuilt the motor. I just within the last week bought a venom winch off of ebay and fabricated a pretty cool looking custom winch mount. I think it looks pretty good myself. I am really excited to have found this site. I love off roading and being outside. Me and some friends are going to pickett state park this Saturday, actually. Speaking of which, does anybody know where I can find a map of the trails there? I've been once, but I just kinda winged it and wound up back at the truck. :/ I'd really like to have some idea of where I'm going and where I've been. Thanks for an awesome site! I look forward to being on here a lot!

congrats on the new ride!

Pickett is an Awesome place to ride and one of my favorite places to ride. I have a lot of pics and some videos of my rides there.

Hopefully we can get a ride planned for there soon, as there are several on here that ride Pickett.

Welcome to the forum, here is the thread for pickett, http://www.mudandgutsoffroadforum.org/t529-map-of-pickett






Here is a link to gps data and a link to google earth and you can print from it.

http://tnriders.forumotion.com/t156-north-cumberland-wma-maps-from-dan-koerner

Sweet! Thanks for the info guys!

Where are you at in ET? I live in Morgan County. You can buy a set of maps from Dan that will load into your gps. I printed out all the maps from Google Earth but they aren't as good as having them overlaid in your gps topo map. Nice atv. I haven't seen a straight axle Honda in a while.

as long as you don't mind the cold we may be going to pickett sometime soon.

If I ever get my machine back from the shop I will guide you around. Welcome to the forum and you are in for a good time. We park on the Kentucky side at a place called the Sunnybrook Sandwich shop on route 200. He charges 5 dollars per unti and your vehicle is safe & secure.

I am ready for another Pickett Ride, actually a Pickett weekend. Lets plan one.

We rode the trails close to Carls last weekend. Just a beautiful country.

I am ready for a Pickett ride too!!

Hi guys. Thanks for all the warm welcomes. Let's see here. I don't want to miss any questions. haha I live in Greene county. Its a bit of a ride out to Pickett, but I say its worth it. Cold doesn't bother me at all. I have lots of, um, lets call it "natural insulation" ;) I am gunna ride as often as I can. I have heard of a lot of People parking at Sonnybrook, but I am a lot closer to the Black House MT road end of it, so that is where we have parked the only 2 times I have gone. So far I haven't had any vandalism issues, yet. I saw where the market was on Dan's map. Thanks to him by the way, I opened it up and printed me some zoomed in maps. I think they will be much better than winging it. I saw that the market was in KY, which leads me to another question. Is there any problems if you start riding in TN and wind up in KY? I don't know why there would be an issue, just we never made it into KY yet. We have only rode the trais in TN, but I see now that was just scratching the surface. Thanks for the offer, Sponge. I might just take you up on it sometime. What happened to the machine man? Nothing as disappointing as having a good weekend to ride and nothing to take riding. Hope you get her back soon. I'd love to do a whole weekend, but I rarely have both days free. It would be great, but I'll probably have to stick to the day trips for a while. Can you camp along the trails? or do you have to come out and stay in a motel? Thanks again for all the info!

It has been in the shop since 10/5 and that dealer closed at the end of month and I had to start over. Needs motor overhaul due to dirt getting into the motor from a broken vacuum hose. Left trailing arm bad also and maybe the starter. It has been at Richies for the last 2 weeks but no word yet. Heading for NJ 11/20 & will be gone until xmas. Lets see if we can get a new years ride in. I have ridden Pickett on a New Years ride and it was 12 degrees. You should have seen my frozen rhino. It took 3 days to defrost in my garage.

Hopefully we can get a ride up before the new year

isn't deer season still in around there. I would hate to ruin some ones hunt or worse get shot at.

JW,

Hey, I live over in Grainger County TN. I can be riding in about 45 minutes from my house. So, if you want to go just let me know. We ride almost every weekend. We do stop or slow down for hunting season. This is out of respect more than anything.

Sending you a pm with my e-mail and cell number.

Welcome to the site my friend!

Sponge, I am going to start a thread for new years pickett ride.. I have some time off.

Well boys, It's 2:30 am Sunday, I just got back from my pickett ride. It's been just 3 1/2 hrs shy of a full day from when I left for my pickett ride. I had a blast and things were going great. We were hunting the car hauler. We did eventually find it and I got to ride across it, but it came at a cost. Right at the bridge, the mighty fourtrax hooked a rock with a front rim and took a bit of a spill. I guess it was nice to be all proud of my 1987 Honda fourtrax with intact plastics and unbent racks and bumpers while it lasted. I might have been able to ride it out, but It bent the rim really bad and I couldn't get it to take air. We ended up hooking my new winch (DANG glad I put that thing on...) to the rear top roll bar of my buddy's 2WD (Yea, I said 2WD) polaris ranger and pull in the winch to get the front wheels of my fourtrax off the ground so it would roll. We had to tow it like that from the car hauler bridge all the way back to the TN parking on black house mt road. It was a sight to see I'm sure. On several occasions, the 2wd (which I was honestly pretty impressed with...) "tow truck" would get hung up and just sit there and spin. So here I was on my fourtrax with front wheels up in the air and back wheels in the mud pushing my own tow truck through the mud hole. It was pretty epic. We had hoped to be back by dark, but that didn't happen. We left the car hauler bridge after dark. Been a long day, but thankful that the Lord kept us safe and that we had a fun ride with good friends. Machines can be replaced, but people can't.

Wow that is a real case of bad luck...glad you are home safe & sound!!

That sucks about wrecking a mint honda. but at least your all right that's all that really matters.

You will fit right in well with the Mud and Guts Crew. ALmost every group ride, one is towed out. Glad that you are ok.

uhhhhh.....any pics?

Sounds like an interesting ride my friend! Glad everyone made it out safe!

Thanks for the encouraging words, guys. I guess of all our group, if somebody had to go, I woulda rather it been me. I wish it had been nobody, but oh well. Yea, Let me see if I can add a couple pics...
This one should be from the bottom looking up at where I went off at. A lot of ya'll might recognize it from right below the car hauler. The tiny blue spec in the top right corner of this pic is another guy standing almost back up to where i went off at...




This pic is looking down from a little over halfway back up from where it went off at. Its pretty steep right there.




I didn't get any pics of the wheeler hooked up to the tow vehicle. It was a sight though, trust me. I am very thankful that the Lord kept me safe. It could have killed me or at least broke a limb or something. I am pretty bummed out about my machine being all busted, but in the grand scheme of things, its just a 4 wheeler. It can be replaced. Speaking of which, anybody got any 87 fourtrax parts?! ;) I know I'll at least need a front bumper and rack, both front shocks, and I haven't yet figured out why my front axle looks cockeyed. I got a little work to do, but I am gunna try hard to fix it. Guess we can just count that as my initiation. I WILL go back and do that trail without a near death experience, if for no other reason just to prove to me and the trail that I can.

That could have been bad. I am thankful that you are ok also.

Did you get in trouble at the base of Car hauler or on down some.