There’s nothing better than finding good trails to hit close to home. Many areas of the state that I love to explore tend to be a good drive from Morgantown. This means it’s tough to get out quickly and start having fun…not that I don’t enjoy a good Sunday drive to get somewhere. Because of the population and infrastructure around Morgantown, it took me a while to explore the area. Thankfully, I chose a day while Mollee was out of town to do a little recon for future adventures. Much to my surprise, I found some great places in Monongalia County that held potential. When Mollee was back in town, we took our next chance to get off the asphalt and see what lay ahead.
Hitting a Dead End…..Or Maybe Not
From Morgantown, we struck out west towards Blacksville where we hit 218 South and went about halfway between Daybrook and Fairview. From there, some back roads took us to CR 18. After driving for a bit, we got to the end of the regular-use road. This part of the trail starts at someone’s driveway and the entrance to a tree farm. The road is fairly well maintained in Jeep terms. With gravel and dirt with water running down it, it wasn’t off-roading, but the scenery was great. About half a mile in, we were met with a fork and took the less used path. We only made it a short way in before down trees blocked us. We could have gotten through but we saw an old house or hunting cabin on top of the hill so I thought it may have been private property.
Instead of driving on it, we hopped out to explore a little.
The land was absolutely beautiful and I’d love to walk it more another day. There weren’t any “No Trespassing” signs until we got to the building but we decided not to linger, even though the path seemed to continue down the other side of the hill. After getting turned around, we drove a little more on the “main” road but came to a gate not much farther. After looking at my GPX track and comparing it to the county road maps, I’m thinking the path by the house may be the “road” and the gate might legitimately be private property. I have messaged the DOT for clarification. You can see video and images from this part on our CR 18 post »
No Thru Traffic
Next, there were a couple of trails starting from the same area that looked like they had potential. We put the coordinates into the GPS and went a little southeast to CR 27/1, which is also listed as Dolls Run on some maps.
This area is a great little playground. It starts with some slight mud and water and then gets more difficult with deep ruts, more rocks, and steeper angles that left us sliding to the side of the trail. For most off-roaders, this is probably par for the course, but I was a little worried about sliding into the banks and breaking my mirrors. As we came out the other side in Marion County, we were pretty much on someone’s farm and we got out to look around. On this end, they have a sign that read “No Thru Traffic”, although I think this is purely to deter people and doubt it has any legal basis for property rights to the trail.
An Adult’s Playground
Where we began is also the start of CR 27/2 to 27/4. These trails are similar to 27/1, but offer a little more playing around. There is also CR 27/3, but we didn’t locate the right direction this time around. What we did find was plenty of mud pits, trees to drive over, and most importantly, enjoying time out in nature. The trail is mostly easy to navigate through—except at one point when I thought I was on 27/3, but we came to a tree with a stop sign on it claiming to be private property. Was this actually private property, or was it the route I wanted? I don’t know, but I want to find out. At the end of the trail we came to what was pretty much a crossing through someone’s driveway but it didn’t seem to be an issue. We passed a few people on the road and I’m sure they knew what we were doing based on the bright orange Jeep with mud all over it. They all waved and smiled so I think they are more accepting of it than some.
I didn’t get to hit all of the spots I wanted to check out, mostly because we had such great luck on two of the trails. That’s a good problem to have. Hopefully, the other trails are as fruitful.
Gallery
