Mothers Day Ride – John Trotto

Distance = 27 Miles Yet another day of overcast skies threatening to rain all day. But that hasn’t stopped us in the past, I was wanting to ride anyway, then Drew called me, wanting to know if I wanted to go out riding with him and Jeff. Needless to say, it didn’t take much convincing, so I loaded up the ATV and headed out to Jeff’s. I pasted Jeff and Drew on the way to their house, they were running down to the store, so I went and played around at the bottom of Hells Hollow. There was a trail I was wanting to checkout anyway. It was a short path up the hillside that bypassed some of the rocky road leading up into Hells Hollow. It was a bit tight in places, with some under brush hanging into the trail, but I thought it was alot of fun, and will probably take that way up into Hells instead of the road from now on. After that I headed up a trail that Ben and I have been up before, but I couldn’t remember where it went. Its a long climb up the hill, with a few tight spots, and a few ruts here and there, but its not too bad at all, and isn’t very steep. I like this type of trails alot, its fun to power up the trail, weaving your way up the winding path through the trees. After I got to the top, I quickly remembered where this trail had lead. It pops out into a large high grass field. I don’t think Ben and I ever ventured into it very far, you can tell that no one rides into it much, due to the grass not being disturbed. So I turned around, headed back down the trail, then up to Jeff’s house. They pulled in right as I got there, perfect timing. I adjusted my throttle cable while waiting on Jeff and Drew to get ready. There was alittle more slack in it than I liked, so I tightened up the cable some, so that there was less play. We figured we would head through Indian Creek to Table Top first. That’s where people seem to be most of the time. We stopped in about the middle of Indian Creek and listened for other riders out. We heard one coming our way, so we waited to see who it was. Turned out to be a mother, father, and two little kids on an ATV. Going out for a mothers day ride I suppose. None of them were wearing helmets. Which is really not surprising out here. Its not a law, unless you are 16 or under, so only the hardcore riders where them. This is the third or forth time I have seen parents out with their little kids on the ATVs with them, which is fine, but for the most part, they at least have helmets on the kids. Jeff mentioned that he has seen other riders get very pissed about seeing kids without helmets before, and even confronting the parents about it. I cant say I blame them, these kids were only about 3 years old, and even if your just putting around really slow, accidents can happen. We didn’t hear anyone else, so we continued up to Table Top via one of the 3 or 4 hill climbs that bypass the gravel round that raps around to Table Top. We didn’t find anyone up there either, and headed down toward the other end where the older strip mine is. There is a double hilled hill climb on the side of it that Drew wanted to try. Jeff and I had been up it with Brent before, and I didn’t think it was all that bad. Its quite steep, but not all that long, so as long as you keep your momentum you get to the top with no troubles. I don’t think Jeff cares for this climb too much, he was quite surprised to see Ben’s dad shoot up it the time we rode with him, but he followed Drew and I up anyway. We circled around to the side of the strip mine, where there is a much longer, steep climb, that I will call Table Top Hill Climb. This is the one I mentioned in the last trip report, that we always look at, but never get the nerve to go up. I have only seen one sport quad attempt it, he made it about half way up, lost traction, and luckily turned back down without much trouble. Drew wanted to try it, and was trying to talk us into it also. Again, visions of my $6000 Rubi rolling back down the hill with parts flying everywhere filled my head. I decided not to try it today, but Drew went for it. He was riding his little Honda 100cc dirt bike, and it sounded like it barely had the power to make it to the top, but he pulled it off.


Just then, we heard another ATV off in the distance, on the other end of Table Top. Jeff said it sounded like Brent’s supped up Prairie. So we took off looking for him. He was alone, playing in the Table Top mud hole.


Jeff had mentioned him before, and said that he also knew alot of other trails around here. We mentioned that we were looking for some new ones, so he lead us out on a few new ones. They were in the same general areas that we had been in before, but we had not been on these particular trails. I thought they were alot of fun, alittle tight in places, due to it being a trail cut right through the middle of the woods. Weaving around trees, fallen logs, and rocks. There was one point wear we came to a fallen tree about 7 to 8″ diameter, that was suspended about a foot off the ground. Jeff started to go around Brent to find a way around it, when Brent started pushing up against it with his ATV. He had at least 27″ Mudzilla tires on it, so it sat rather high, and only the tires were contacting the tree. He flipped it in 4WD and got the front end to pop up over the tree, the ATV came crashing down onto the tree, shattering it into pieces. Brent casually rode over it, looked back at me, and motioned to me, “ok, come on through”. I got a kick out of it, and was laughing my ass off. Jeff said he has alot more aggressive riding stile then most others out here, he likes to ride fast and hard over long distances. I hope to see him around again, I think will enjoying riding with him. We only rode for a short time with Brent, he had to meet his family somewhere, I think for a graduation, so he headed home. Jeff, Drew, and I headed out to the Slate Dumps. I had shown Jeff the Rivesville lookout there on a previous ride and he enjoyed it alot. They had to make a stop down at the gas station to fuel up, so I went ahead to the Slate Dumps and played around alittle, then waited for them on top the lookout.


After hanging out on top the lookout for a while, we went back down to the bottom slate dumps and played around for a while. There are a few whoops and jumps setup there. I don’t like to jump the larger jumps, these utility ATVs just weren’t meant to fly. But I do enjoy “hopping” some of the small whoops and jumps.



We hung around here BSing for a while, watching the storm clouds finally roll in at the end of the day. We should have left then, but we just stood around talking for a while longer, when it eventually started to rain. Taking shelter under the tree cover only did so much, and we were starting to get wet. We called it a day and headed back home.