Rausch Creek and Paragon?

[Baba Booey]

What do you all think about Rausch Creek and Paragon off-road parks? I currently live about 7 miles from Rausch Creek, and I grew up about 20 miles from Paragon, which is about 35 miles from me now.

I know some members wheel at these places, and I would just like to hear from some as to what you think about them.

I've lived in this area all my life, and I never really had the need to pay to off-road, although true off-roading has never been one of my hobbies. This area is full of places to wheel, and I would say that most of them are legal. There are many abandoned strip-mine areas, fire tower roads, power line roads that are opened up during hunting season, etc.

I have an entirely stock '06 SR5 4WD, and my wife would chop my you-know-what off if I seriously damaged her new grocery getter. I recently got rid of an '87 Jeep Comanche pick-up that was perfect for this type of stuff, but it was too rotted out to keep on the road - it was costing me a fortune in body/frame/hardware repairs.

 

[sharp4runr]

You should have met up with us when we a bunch of went to Rausch Creek last Saturday! We're thinking of doing Paragon too so keep an eye out for that in the future.

From what I hear Rausch has more "green" trails than Paragon, but I've never been to Paragon before and last week was the first time going to Rausch (or any real offroad park for that matter). Some portions of the green trail were pretty technical IMO (again, never been offroading before so I'm coming from that perspective) and it would have been nice to have a trail guide but we seemed to all manage.

Maybe you can show us some of your local trails next go around

 

[toybox]

What do you all think about Rausch Creek and Paragon off-road parks? I currently live about 7 miles from Rausch Creek, and I grew up about 20 miles from Paragon, which is about 35 miles from me now.

I know some members wheel at these places, and I would just like to hear from some as to what you think about them.

I've lived in this area all my life, and I never really had the need to pay to off-road, although true off-roading has never been one of my hobbies. This area is full of places to wheel, and I would say that most of them are legal. There are many abandoned strip-mine areas, fire tower roads, power line roads that are opened up during hunting season, etc.

I have an entirely stock '06 SR5 4WD, and my wife would chop my you-know-what off if I seriously damaged her new grocery getter. I recently got rid of an '87 Jeep Comanche pick-up that was perfect for this type of stuff, but it was too rotted out to keep on the road - it was costing me a fortune in body/frame/hardware repairs.

Well a group of us just had a great time at Rausch. It really sucks having to pay to go off road but if you are not a local it's pretty hard to find and or know good legal places to go.

Hey I'm sure we would love a guided tour of the free legal places around you.

I'm pretty sure that Rausch would still be a little different because they are mainly tight woodland trails with many rocks. I'm picturing the other places to be a little more wide open. Not neccassarily worse but different.

 

[Baba Booey]

I will keep my eyes open for any upcoming get-togethers. I wasn't aware of the last one. I just read your post in the General Discussion section where you mentioned Rausch Creek in a post by TeryT regarding the removal of his running boards.

After reading it, I did a search for Rausch Creek and saw that a group of members had just been there. The story of my life...a day late and a dollar short.

 

[Baba Booey]

Re: Re: Rausch Creek and Paragon?

Hey I'm sure we would love a guided tour of the free legal places around you.

I will do some scouting around when I get some time. Like I said, I have never been a true off-road enthusiast, but growing up in this area, you almost had to have gone off-road a few times (hunting, parking, booze parties, running from the police, etc. : )

I've lived at my current address for about six years, and all of my off-road adventures here have been limited mostly to hunting excursions - nothing real technical.

I need to catch up with some of my old-time friends (before I was married with children) that used to get off-road to find out where it's still cool to travel. As in a lot of places, things aren't what they used to be.

There are a lot of ATV riders around here lately that have been giving off-road enthusiasts a bad name. Not all of them are this way, but some have no respect for private property, safety while crossing highways, littering, etc.

This will be a great excuse for me to try and revisit many of these old haunts.

 

[toybox]

Let us know if you find some good places. Maybe we could combine it with some time at Rausch.

 

[Koz]

http://www.toyota-4runner.org/showthread.php?threadid=10570&highlight=paragon

Koz

 

[Baba Booey]

Thanks, Koz. It looks like you had a great time at Paragon. I spoke with one of my friends the other day, and I mentioned that I wanted to get the new 4Runner off-road. He said that many of the places we used to travel when we were younger are probably still accessible. However, he thought I would be crazy to take a brand new rig off-road.

I disagreed, but he did raise a good point. Many of the old trails we used to ride have overhanging trees and brush alongside them. We would almost need to pre-run these trails in an old beater just to get an idea as to how badly our newer vehicles will get "pinstriped".

I can see the wife not liking that look....

There is something to be said about having an old junker 4x4 available for abuse.