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Cottonland Cruisers Bienville National Forest Ride-February 2011
When you live in Mississippi and love off-roading (but hate mud), you are severely limited in your choices of local trails. Diverse terrain and dry roads are generally not what people thing of when they think about central Mississippi trails. Recently, I was told about a section of Bienville National Forest just 30 miles southeast of Jackson that offered just this. Curvy, wide and dry trails through rich old growth pines and hardwoods. In fact, the 178,000 acre Bienville National Forest, established in 1934 and named after French Explorer Jean Baptiste Bienville is one of the largest public areas in the entire state, but none of our group had ever taken advantage of the opportunity to use the park for our Land Cruiser rides.
After putting up some teaser pictures from my friend David Quirin from his dual-sport bike forum, the group was hooked. We met at the Cracker Barrel in Pearl and lined up in the parking lot across the street. We were amazed at the size of the group. 13 Toyotas lined up. Representing were 2 FJ-40's, 1 FJ-60, 1 Tacoma, two 100 series and the rest 80 series from stock to 40" tires.
Jeff Murrah was sporting a brand new set of 35" MTR's and a Metaltech Grill hoop.
We headed out of town on Hwy 18 to the town of Puckett and topped off our tanks and made a last bathroom break. From there we went into "explore" mode as no one in the group had ever been in this part of the National Forest.
About 4 miles out of Puckett, we saw a sign for County Road 503 and we turned North. Just up 503 we turned into the first Forest Service (FS) road FS521. The road was nice and wide and well serviced. Not dirt, not gravel, but a sandy hard-pack.
When you live in Mississippi and love off-roading (but hate mud), you are severely limited in your choices of local trails. Diverse terrain and dry roads are generally not what people thing of when they think about central Mississippi trails. Recently, I was told about a section of Bienville National Forest just 30 miles southeast of Jackson that offered just this. Curvy, wide and dry trails through rich old growth pines and hardwoods. In fact, the 178,000 acre Bienville National Forest, established in 1934 and named after French Explorer Jean Baptiste Bienville is one of the largest public areas in the entire state, but none of our group had ever taken advantage of the opportunity to use the park for our Land Cruiser rides.
After putting up some teaser pictures from my friend David Quirin from his dual-sport bike forum, the group was hooked. We met at the Cracker Barrel in Pearl and lined up in the parking lot across the street. We were amazed at the size of the group. 13 Toyotas lined up. Representing were 2 FJ-40's, 1 FJ-60, 1 Tacoma, two 100 series and the rest 80 series from stock to 40" tires.
Jeff Murrah was sporting a brand new set of 35" MTR's and a Metaltech Grill hoop.
We headed out of town on Hwy 18 to the town of Puckett and topped off our tanks and made a last bathroom break. From there we went into "explore" mode as no one in the group had ever been in this part of the National Forest.
About 4 miles out of Puckett, we saw a sign for County Road 503 and we turned North. Just up 503 we turned into the first Forest Service (FS) road FS521. The road was nice and wide and well serviced. Not dirt, not gravel, but a sandy hard-pack.