Jefferson National Forest

[izzyandsue]

Planning on driving up there tomorrow, wife and dogs. Supposed to be a nice one day drive through hoof country forest roads be scenery. Will report back with pictures if it is any good.

The actual name is the Mount Rogers National Recreational Area. This is the entry point, found the writeup in overlandexpo forum a while back and set the waypoints to drive to. Wife said she would be ready to leave at 8, so hope to hit the road by 8:45 if you know what I mean...

 

[izzyandsue]

Back from the trek, nice place, pretty empty too. It was 2.5 hours from Matthews, FYI, to Cripple Creek on map above.

This was my trail below, most of it anyway. Some key thoughts:

• Dirt forest roads, mostly one lane with passbys
• Elevation changes 1500 feet, high point 4000 ft
• Few horses
• Very nice camping areas, easy drive to
• No hard core wheeling, but not accessible with a car, signs tell you to drove 4wd
• 220 miles to get gas (14 gallons) after trip, not bad
• Only encountered one other truck on road throughout

 

[izzyandsue]

If we say "wannago for ride?" The pups leap up in the back

The roads mostly look like this, some gravel, mostly dirt and narrow, not challenging.

We stopped for lunch at the horse camp, very nice camping area with trails off it, walking and horse trails, nice creek. Amazingly clean too

 

[izzyandsue]

Next stop was comers rock overlook, we hit 4000 ft there and awesome view.

Dogs loved the trucks doggie windows, let all the smells in

Slight climb to overlook

Up in the clouds

 

[izzyandsue]

This is the rest of the trail up to Hwy 16, the way home

There's a nice trail all around lake hale, we walked it with dogs, deer, pheasants, no bears

On the other side of 21, there was some very nice camp grounds for non horses, more hiking type. Also clean as could be, cool and accessible via truck. Lots of trails around.

There were a few turn offs that could have made interesting off-roading, but I decided not to follow as they could be for horses even though not marked.

Overall, great little day trip, good for testing exploration or rig setup would be my guess. camping could be really cool too, if you like hiking, like we do. Would go back or read more about camping rules online later.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

That's beautiful.

 

[Green Hell Mustang]

I have a nice size map of this place if you guys are ever interested in scouting for anything (hiking, trail riding, mountain biking, camping, etc.). It has both the Northern and Southern regions of the forest. I know it's not fancy as a digital map, but it gets the job done.

 

[izzyandsue]

All that and Lewis won!