Trail system adds riding for full-sized machines

STOLLINGS, W.Va. — Jerry Bain of Elizabeth, W.Va. gets a gleam in his eye when you ask him about his machine.

“It started life as a Jeep Cherokee,” he explains. “But I built it from the ground up.”

Bain’s machine with modified suspension, tires, engine, and external roll cage is built for “rock crawling.”

“A lot of people think we’re into splitting mud holes, but that’s the exact opposite of what we do,” he said. “We like to go slow and crawl up the mountain over the rocks.”

It’s exactly what the machine did, tackling a stream bed from the foot of the mountain all the way to the upper most trail in the Bearwallow section of the Hatfield-McCoy Trial System.

Bain and his off-roading club have been instrumental in development of the new full-sized OHV trail system on the Bearwallow Trail. The new segment was officially opened last week after more than a year in development.  The trails originally designed for four-wheelers and UTV’s have been widened to accommodate larger vehicles.  Rock trails have been cleared to allow for full-sized modified four wheel drive vehicles built for the purpose of crawling upward.

It’s a niche group trail managers believe will bring another unique set of off-road enthusiasts to southern West Virginia.

“When we initially started this, we weren’t sure, so we did some invites out to these folks,” said Jeff Lusk, Executive Director of the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System. “What we found is on a given weekend we will have a couple hundred of theses rigs and their drivers here in southern West Virginia on our Bearwallow system. I think we’re just tapping this market.”

An off-road trail in Harlan County, Kentucky is considered the gold standard for the rock crawling machines, but Bain believes in a few short years Bearwallow will hold the distinction with some of the most challenging and technical terrain anywhere fin the eastern United States or the slow rolling enthusiasts.

“Based on what the clubs are telling us, we have the most technical off-road park in the eastern U.S.” Lusk said. “To think that a year and a half ago we didn’t even have an off road park and now we have one of the most technical in the eastern U.S. it’s hard to believe we came this far, this fast.  But it was due to the help of the clubs and the club members.”

While the rock climbing OHV machines are one niche, the bigger draw, according to Lusk, is the off roading opportunity for the conventional four-wheel drive owners.

“A lot of these trail system is made for your stock Jeep owners,” said Lusk. “We’ve got over 80 miles of that non-modified Jeep and truck trails and we know there’s millions of those out there.”





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