The Jeep rental lady gave us a list of trails that fell into 3 categories:
- Easy trails – OK to take the jeep with no assistance
- Moderate trails – OK with an expert guide or experienced driver
- Hard Trails – guaranteed damage – do not travel
With Jim and Cory as expert guides and Storm as an “experienced” driver we took off for the “Top of the World” – a #2 rated OHV trail that everyone told us was “worth” the ride. It is not that the ride was bad – rocky, bumpy, steep, with minimal flowers… it is that the trail is loooong and when you are our age all that bumping around can take a toll on old bones. Even Storm admitted that he had been holding onto the steering wheel with a death grip the whole time just so his arms would not fly around. That explained why the radio stations kept changing as the “smart wheel” had all the radio controls that Storm inadvertently kept pushing. One minute Bluegrass, the next minute Opera, what? The end of the ride at the “Top of the World” was breathtaking. Jim said if we looked hard we could see the curvature of the earth. Everyone that I have mentioned this trail to since we rode it says yes it is beautiful, but they would not do it again. At the end of the ride, we took a trip down Onion Creek Road which meanders back and forth through Onion Creek and some of the most colorful dirt that I have EVER seen. Check out this video of the ride.
Here are a few extra pics that did not fit in the video:
rattlesnakes.