There are three off-road parks within an hour and a half drive from our house in the northern Philadelphia suburbs: Rauch Creek, AOAA Trails, and Famous Reading Outdoors. I’ve been to Rauch Creek already and had a blast, but wanted to try out one of the other parks.
Off-Road Consulting hosts guided trail ride opportunities for all three of these parks. What is great about these guided rides is that it takes the worry out of not knowing the trails. It is not about the fear of getting lost. Sometimes getting lost is part of the fun! These guided trails provide you with some piece of mind knowing that your Off-Road Consulting leader will not put you in a situation that is dangerous to you or your vehicle.
Another nice thing about these guided trail rides is that most off road parks restrict you from going out on the trails alone. Most, if not all three, require at least two vehicles to each party. These guided trail rides take all the worry out of having to find another off-roader if your regular buddy bails on you.
Famous Reading Outdoors (FRO)
FRO is made up of 20,000 acres of what used to be part of Famous Reading Anthracite, a coal mining company that has major operations in PA coal country. There is no active mining occurring in FRO, just acres and acres of trails used by full size off-roaders, side by sides (SXS), dirt bikes, ATVs, and so on. There are no dedicated trails for full size off-roading, so it is not surprising to see other types of vehicles on the same trail.
There are no green, blue, red trail delineation at FRO like there are at other parks. Most trails are of the green variety, but some of the off-shoot trails offer many of the challenges you might see on blue trails elsewhere.
Our Day
We were instructed by our Off-Road Consulting guide to meet at the Walmart in Pottsville, PA prior to 8:30 AM. It was nice that we were meeting in a shopping center as it gave me a chance to find a bathroom (2 cups of coffee will do that to you). I checked in with the guide, deflated my tires and then waited a bit for everyone else that was registered to show up.
There ended up being about 8 vehicles in our group and I was the only non-Jeep. It doesn’t bother me so much, but there are times with the conversation turns to their Jeeps and I just have to politely pretend that I am interested. Hey, what do I expect being the odd man out?
We were scheduled for the trail from 9:00AM until 3:00PM with a break for lunch.
We headed out behind the Walmart to the trail head for what is called the Burma Tract. We headed south and drove through some easy, snow covered trails. The area was tight in spots and it was hard to get through without some branches lightly pinstriping your vehicle. Many of the water puddles were frozen over and there were floating chucks of ice to navigate over. It was a cool sensation driving over the ice until it could no longer support the weight, then to fall through, dropping a foot or so.
We spent the rest of the morning on the Burma Tract and its various trails. There were enough trails on that side and they could have kept us busy all day, but we headed back to the Walmart where we took a break for lunch.
After lunch, we headed up Rt. 61 slowly (we didn’t air up our tires) about a mile, and then turned left into what is called the South Properties. This side of the park was a bit more challenging. We started going north up a large hill via switchbacks without a lot of room to maneuver in spots. The trail was often very rocky and narrow with the drop-off close at points. It seemed like we were forever going up the switchbacks and there was no real crescendo when we reached the top. Before we knew it, we were on our way back down.
The way down … that was the best part. The trail we were on seemed liked we were driving down an active streambed at times. The water was flowing down the trail from the snow melt and from the heavy rain the day before. There were big rocks to maneuver over or around, some in deep water. It was a whole lot of fun.
After lunch, I was behind a guy in an older Jeep. Not sure the year or the make (I am not up on my Jeep models). It looked to be an early 2000s model with a stock suspension. Perhaps it was even lower than stock, at least that is how it seemed. When we were heading down the hill on the rocky trail with the water flowing down it, I witnessed him taking this Jeep places that I never thought it would go. Rocks where hitting his rear bumper as his back wheel came down the other side. Here is a video showing some of this action.
The rest of our afternoon on the South Properties were spent driving over some washouts, back through some heavy forest and down next to some old strip mining equipment. Three o’clock came before we knew it and we headed back to the Walmart parking lot to air up and to chat about our day.