Arkansas Ride Reports

Why is that the mud sticks together so well but when your tire is coated with it the mud on your tire slides like KY on the mud on the ground? Questions that keep me up at night.

Dirtdabber, hope the rest of the trip was ok, let us know you made it home safe. Your bike looked like it enjoyed the nap...it still looks good laying down. <>< njoytheride

I'm home safe and sound.

I had to cut the trip short one day for work, but that paid off with several weeks of work for the crew.

1166 miles in just under 48 hours.

The ride report is started here.

http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=611985


I have decided that Arkansas is like a gateway drug. I gotta come back for more.

II got to ride Fri, Sat, and Sun this weekend.
Friday I took my son up to Treat, AR with the RZR. He isn&#8217;t able to ride a m/c so I bought this thing to give him a little bit of off-road adventure.

Austin and his RZR

We took &#8220;<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:Street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Page Hollow Road</st1:address></st1:Street>&#8221; along Moccasin creek starting where Moccasin and Indian creek (otherwise known locally as the &#8220;low water bridge at Treat&#8221 over to a trail called &#8220;High Mountain Loop&#8221;.




These are part of the Moccasin Creek Trail system accessible from Hwy 7 but we go in the back way from Treat. These are almost entirely 4-wheeler trails with large creek rock or loose rubble up the hills.


Narrow trail for a RZR!




Did I mention that it was rocky?









Like pigs in mud!

He enjoyed it but it&#8217;s a workout if you're one handed! He did well and I&#8217;m proud of him. The only glitch was the darned spiders everywhere. Biguns! My son smacked right into a tree because he thought a spider was about to get on him. Poor old tree.

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We&#8217;ve had over 20 days of 100 degree plus temperatures and it&#8217;s really beginning to show.

Two pics of Stave Mill falls last October






These last 2 pics are of Stave Mills Falls on Saturday Aug 21, 2010

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Saturday Apostle2 and I rode the DS bikes in this same trail system for some challenging 2-wheel action in anticipation of the kinds of trails we expect to see in <st1:State w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Colorado</st1lace></st1:State> next month.














Need power bars.......Need power bars.....


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Don't let it be said that we don't have classy trails in Arkansas









Evidently, there hadn&#8217;t been a lot of traffic through there because the spiders were prevalent again.
I let Dave lead because&#8230;well he&#8217;s just good at it. There were a few emergency stops with quick dismounts with helmets coming off in a hurry! What&#8217;s the big deal? Spiders don&#8217;t eat that much! But seriously, I don&#8217;t care for them either.


Leaves of three...Let them be!


We stopped at Mack&#8217;s Pines for lunch and hydration.

Sunday evening I took my daughter for a spin on the big bike over to Morrilton and over <st1lace w:st="on"><st1laceName w:st="on">Petit</st1laceName> <st1laceName w:st="on">Jean</st1laceName> <st1laceName w:st="on">Mountain</st1laceName></st1lace>. I let her take pictures as we rode. It&#8217;s kinda&#8217; nice to have someone else snap photos so you can just concentrate on the road.



Can you say Hollywood?



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Mt. Petit Jean's namesake

Hwy 154 leading up the mountain. We actually heard and saw a blinged out Road Glide with a Thunderheader and Rap music so loud you could hear it over the pipes from the lookout. About 4 minutes later it pulled into the parking lot with the music still blasting.

This rig screamed "Look at me!"
Some folks just don't get it. You come to the mountain for peace and quiet and the sound of the wind in the leaves and you hear "Thump-thuimp-thump" that drowns out everything else. By the way, I've probably got one of the more quiet Harley's you're likely to hear.


Yeah I'm proud.






Looks like Pumpernickle bread!








Give a kid a camera and watch what happens.




Formerly WinRock Farms. Now a cullinary institute.

Sunset from the Pallisades



Temps were starting to get pleasant on toward evening and we had a nice relaxing ride. My daughter is actually a pretty good passenger. She doesn&#8217;t squirm around or constantly ask questions or get all nervous when the bike leans a little. I believe she had fun and I know I was glad to get a little one on one time with both kids
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All in all it was a pretty good weekend. I didn&#8217;t get a lot of (actually zero) domestic chores done but it was worth it.
<st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Gary</st1lace></st1:City>

Nice reports... I like how you include your kids.

Great Reports Gary

Great rides Gary! Wish you could went yesterday.

Very cool ride reports. Better watch out for your daughter, she will hijack one of your bikes soon!

True Charley,
She's been subtlely hinting that she wants one like the WRR but I see her mother roll her eyes everytime she mentions it. It's probably going to be a while. She also wants a dog, a car (nothing fancy..an Edge or a Mustang would be ok), she wants a horse lets see what else??...I've got a list around here somewhere. She's your typical teenage girl with a really short attention span but I love her anyway.
Gary

Bill,
I was just looking thru some of your vids. Those are cool. The music for the Wolfcreek Pass is a hoppin' little tune. I see why you got your own site.
gary

Thanks,

The site is in bad need of an update... I have lots more vids and pic there.. but no links to them.

Although I could have used some power bars, I was simply trying to get rid of some of the spider webs clinging all over me. Kinda like trying to flick a sticky booger, they just didn’t want to come off.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
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Because of the copious amount of spiders crawling all over me I didn’t take any pictures, almost had a couple of “Oh Sh%*!” moments because of them things. <o></o>
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But I did manage to have enough time for a short (very short) video. No much water in them hills these days but what little water is there, we found it.<o></o>
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<IFRAME height=265 src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/14411408?portrait=0" frameBorder=0 width=400></IFRAME>Untitled from David Carothers on Vimeo

Good thing I had toilet paper.....


We managed to ride about 85 miles on the 250’s and the trails were rough enough to mandate a nap afterwards.<o></o>

You are now more talkitive than the last time I saw you. *snerk*

What can I say, I just don't have the gift of gab like some folks around here. :)

Very nice Apostle2
I got to get over that way before long myself.
Wish my oldest (now 16) would pass his driving test. g
umpteen times he's taken it and blows it everytime.
I'm waiting to put plates on the old DT125 then he can go riding with me.

Hey I've got a 17 year old with a license but still can't get him to ride with me. He says he doesn't like trail riding, he only wants to ride on MX tracks.

The kids these days....

Glade Top Trail - Missouri​

I've been reading about this trail/road for sometime now. I actually started building a route a few months back.

But curiosity, boredom and the lack of a ride this week forced me to finish laying out the route and finally visit the area. Glade Top Trail is famous in this part of the midwest for it's scenic beauty. My partners in this ride are JoeNuclear, TallDaddy (from ADV) and the ride will be a 250 mile day jaunt.

Glade Top Trail sits on a narrow ridge in the mountains of SW and South Central Missouri. And for those of you that don't know what a "glade" is they are sometimes called barrens or knobs. They are areas of thin soil with relatively large amounts of exposed bedrock and are dominated by herbs as the main vegetation. Plants growing on these glades must be able to endure extreme drought and heat during the summer months, but at other times of year they also must withstand large amounts of frost upheaval of the thin soils and periods of inundation when rain and melting snows cannot soak in quickly through the rock.

As for our trip to the Glade, there would be a significant amount of tarmac involved in our trek due to the lack of gravel roads between and around Table Rock and Bull Shoals Lake's.

This a map overview of the area where we headed today.

This area is supposed to be a spectacular during the fall so I might have to go back during fall colors. Here is more information for those of you that want to come up this way this fall.​

The trip today was nearly 242 miles round trip.​

So, the players today were Joe Nuclear (Joe) and his ride.





TallDaddy (Arnold) and his steed. Arnold needs to work on his wardrobe, yes?





After everyone was ready we made the decision to have breakfast at the Back Porch Restaurant on Holiday Island. Joe and went ahead of Arnold as he was suited up but not quite ready to roll. Joe and I got there, ordered and got to wondering where Arnold was. Our food came and were eating when I got a phone call from Arnold. His bike wouldn't start...dang!

Joe was finishing up his breakfast and he needed to cross the street to the gas station and air up his tires, in the meantime I went back to help Arnold. My jumper cables were in my son's car so we couldn't jump his bike..argh!.

We hit upon the idea of bump starting the beast but no go. So we decided to pull the bike behind my truck. Arnold wasn't to keen on this but said lets try it. We drug the KTM around for a bit and Voila' it started! Off we went to the restaurant and met Joe coming back. So, were ready, finally! An hour behind schedule but we started our trip.

I took the lead as Joe and Arnold weren't too sure the routes were correct in their GPS's, Joe followed and Arnold was running chase. After about an hour of traveling though the countryside toward Missouri, it was time for a nature call. I stopped and Joe pulls up behind me. He ask's "where's Arnold?" Hell I don't know?

This would become a re-occurring theme for today's ride.

Making our way toward Hiway 65 near Alpena we came down a particularly rocky hill toward a creek (this is the same creek that 10Cup and O'leary went down in earlier this year). As I came around the last turn toward the creek and there were two large rocks in the road in my lane. The turn is off camber and canted toward a very deep ditch and the road is rutted and has lots of marbles on it.

I manage to dodge the rocks and over corrected causing the back to break loose but narrowly averted the deep ditch on my left and zoomed down the hill.

I cross the creek and go up the hill and decide that my morning coffee needed to be released. I stop to relieve myself. Joe follows and gets off his bike for a break. We waited about 5 minutes and he looks at me and asks "Where's Arnold? Damn if I know! Arnold had been riding in the middle at this point but Joe didn't see him leave the road. And he wasn't here, WTF?



We stand there talking for at least 10 minutes, waiting, no Arnold. So I mount up and go back to the creek near the rocks in the road. This about 4 miles back, but stop at the creek. No Arnold!

I hightail back to Joe and we decide to sweep the area again. We head back to the creek area. Joe rides slow sweep searching ditches while I ride ahead. We agree that he will wait for me at the creek. Just before the creek I meet a farmer in his pickup. I asked if he had seen a guy on an orange bike, he says yes, I just pulled him out of a ditch...OH CRAP!

Riding on to where the farmer indicated I find Arnold sitting alongside the road and his bike looking pretty beat up (sorry no pics). His bike is upright but the right hand guard is wonky.

Arnold dodged the same rocks that Joe and I had avoided but came into the corner too hot and laid down about a 10' skid mark before going off an embankment narrowly missing a barbed wire fence and a really large downed tree. He was ok, he said. Whew!

His hand guards were tweaked and broken and other than that the bike was in fairly good shape. We dig into our tools and find the allen wrenchs we needed and straightened the guards as best we could. No major damage to the bike or Arnold but I was guessing he was going to get really sore.

Arnolds return from the dead





Arnold kept insisting he was ok so....we ride on!



It's now about noon so we fuel up near Kissee Mills. As we get there we see cops, a meat wagon and a Harley in a ditch, we go around them through a field and to the gas station. The gas station attendant said someone died at the intersection, two bikes and a car involved...damn.

We are also hungry now. So we deviate from the route to "Dannas BBQ", highly recommended! Good food and reasonable prices.



I stop and take off my gear and Joe sits on the edge of the parking lot looking for Arnold? Where is Arnold? Hell I don't know!

So, you guessed it, we wait, and wait some more, no Arnold? Joe goes back to find him. A couple of minutes go by, Joe returns but no Arnold, wtf?

About the time we decide to go in and eat my phone rings, it's Arnold. When we left the gas station I went left toward the restaurant, then Joe went left and Arnold went right...where the hell is Arnold? Guess we should have done leap frog out of the parking lot? Arnold said he was on the route and where were we? After some discussion about where we had gone Arnold decided that he was hurting sufficiently now to warrant turning around and just going back to my house. This wasn't surprising because after I saw where Arnold had landed he had to be really sore.

Joe and I go in to eat.

About half way through my sandwich I looked up and here's Arnold! He decided to eat before going home. Yaya! We found Arnold! He was pretty beat up.





Did I mention we were hungry and the food was good?



As we were eating I was looking at Arnolds hand. His right pinky finger and the one next to it were gouged pretty bad, and he was bruising. He announced that he was going back to my place. I think a good decision given the day he had. Arnold is a good rider that just happened to hit one corner a little too hot. He'll be back.

Joe and I left lunch and headed toward Glade Top. I was there in my youth and it had changed a lot! Once we turned off the highway we were immediately graced with deep, loose, dusty rock. This stuff sucked! There is no graceful way to ride it, grip the tank with your legs and go for it.

When we finally get the Glade itself I was looking at this for a trail.



I look at Joe and he looks at me I said I wonder if that goes through, and took off. I was about 4-5 miles down the trail when I stopped to my phone ringing inside my tank bag, it's Joe.

It was Joe, he said you might want to turn around. I asked why? he told me "you just drove past a sign that said no motorized vehicles". Well crap! I turned around and came back.

This is what the trail looked like at the start but it got must worse and was just a great place to ride. Too bad it was only for hiking and horse riding.



After turning around we tried to find a road that would allow us to continue east on the Glade Top Trail, these were taken along the way.







When we finally got to the top of the Glade this was our view.







We meandered around the country side on the top of the Glade Top Road for 23 beautiful miles.

The road drops off into a valley, the valley into a rocky ravine. We continue and come to a closed gate. I slow and I hear Joe behind me saying "DAMN"! He must of said it loud because I heard it with my helmet on, engine running and I wasn't wearing my hearing aids. I got a glance at the sign on the gate. It says "Please close the gate" Yay!



The trail got technical and really fun.





We had a great day, well two of us did! I hope Arnold is ok this morning? I know he is going to be sore. Joe had to get back to Ft. Smith at a reasonable hour so we plotted a slab ride home and trashed our knobbies.

I really enjoyed the ride, and I will go back later in the year but I think I will trail the bike to Glade Top so I can spend more time exploring and less time slabbing with knobbies.

Our stats for the day. I guess we exceeded the stop time on the gps waiting for Arnold???



Our actual tracks for the Glade Top Area itself are available. If you want them please pm me. I am not lucky enough to be one of those that can post .gpx files here.​

Charlie, you are such a tease...

The closer you get to KC the more Tarmac you are going to have to endure even ST. Louis beats the shit out of us. That weird that I have to ride to SL to be able to ride better dirt and back roads.​

Hmmm.. I heard Glade Top had just been graded and was covered with marbles.... This should be interesting.