Windrock Trail 11, 13, S8 (outside the park on TWRA land), 30, and 2.

Valhalla · Aug 18, 2024

Ford Bronco Windrock Trail 11, 13, S8 (outside the park on TWRA land), 30, and 2. 20240817_071625

Ford Bronco Windrock Trail 11, 13, S8 (outside the park on TWRA land), 30, and 2. 20240817_091257

It was a beautiful sunrise as we headed into the park for another round of choose your own adventure.

Alan Aleshia Jason and me all had hopes of high adventure as we got rolling out of the general store parking lot going north on the park road over to 330. A quick left and 10 minutes later we turned left again on to state route 116 (AKA the devil's triangle). Several hairpin curves up the mountain and we turned left back into the park on G1. A quick air down and we hit trail 11. This trail was a great moderate trail easily done with a locked rear and 35's. It was pretty cool. And great day for it as the cloudy day turned into being in the cloud as we climbed further into the hill. After a while we made our way out of 11. We worked our way through some easy trails to find 13. The idea heading out 13 was to go out onto TWRA trails and see if we could connect back with G7 in the park. Trail 13 was another great moderate trail that was a little less traveled. It being summer in Tennessee and less traveled equals trail rash. Don't take this trail if you don't want to spend some serious time with buffer and polish. Your factory shine will be gone with light trail strips down the sides of your rig after this one. We thought we were going to have to turn back after we'd been headed out this trail for a while. We turned around and found where the trail had turned up hill and people had just been journeying out to a field the other way. After about 20 more minutes we left Windrock and entered Cumberland wildlife preserve on TWRA land. The trail from here was tighter and much less improved for a while. There were no drainage tunnels so the "ditches" were often steep break overs down and back. We stopped to have a bite and Alan stated "I should have fueled up before we left.", not good! We had a decision to make with him around an 1/8 of a tank on a thirsty Warthog (Braptor for everyone else). After consulting the Oracle (Onx offroad) and the trusty map, we decided to press on. We ended up on Emily Cemetery Road. (This is not a road but rather a moderate to difficult trail). I had to pull winch cable to get out of a ditch that looked like at least 40's had last "dug" there way out of them leaving ruts that my skids and rear differential were dragging to much for tires to push them over. I don't know if it was Alans ( henceforth known as Gasman) higher stance, wider stance or that me winching up had plowed the dirt down, but he walked right out of it. We did eventually find a Cemetery, shortly after the road changed to Patterson Cemetery Road. This led us to 116. The Warthog was low on go go juice! We however were at pavement. We chanced it over the mountain on 116 to Gingers Deli which has fuel and is situated pretty far off of the beaten path. We said goodbye to the Gasman and headed to 330. A left and another quick left we were on the road to look at wardens ridge (trail 75 a double diamond trail.) We parked at the bottom and looked around the gatekeeper and the drop on either side. There are a ton of pictures and video of this online so I will let you find your own info on it. We hopped back in my stumpjumper and headed for halfmoon road to hit trail 30. This trail needs minimum of 35's, locked front and rear, and a winch if you are alone. at least one in the group if you are not. I went on this trail months back and just know that the obstacles have gotten more challenging with this years rain and the use this trail has seen.

We made our way over a ton of obstacles with relative ease until I used the fuel tank skid to completely turtle all four of my swamper TSLs off the ground. Time to use the trusty rear winch. A quick pull backward a smarter line and we were moving again. Several locked bumpy undercarriage scraping obstacles later we were at a pretty rough part of the trail. I attempted it about 6 times to no avail. after the second time my ARB front bumper whacked a tree beside the 32 + inch tall ledge we decided to pull line and save it for another day. Some large boulders later and we were out on G8.

We followed G8 to G1 to G10 and made our way down trail 2 to the parking lot. This trail is more worn than it has been in my recollection. I do believe any rig on 35's, with the right line, can climb up this one or ease down it. We hit pavement loaded up the Bronco on the trailer and called our 10 hour adventure memory!