Where to Wheel

[motormayhem]

Howdy,
My name is Miles. I am looking at possibly going to cornell next year and wanted to see what was in the area. I\'m from Tucson, Az so I am big into the rock crawling/trails here. Is there anything close by (like within an hour) to ithaca that would prove to have some difficulty/crawling?

I daily drive/wheel a 1984 M1009 CUCV with a 4\" lift, 1 ton axles, and 6.2 diesel.

[MrMindless]

Very nice!

Ithaca is an absolutely beautiful area, and one of our members actually works at Ithaca College....

For rock crawling you\'re very spoiled where you are.  NY doesn\'t allow much on state lands, only snowmobiles and hiking for the most part. We travel down to Rausch Creek in Tremont, PA, for most of our rock crawl wheeling. There\'s also a private park near Fultonville NY, and a few other places down in PA (Rock Run in Patton, PA; BeaveRun, I forget the town; and a new park opening in Northumberland County PA, an hour or so north of Rausch), but you\'re looking at 2-3 hours for any decent rocks.  

Don\'t forget that our terrain here is very different than what you\'re used to too, many more trees to rub on, and often slick wet stuff between the rocks. You\'d probably want some rub rails on the back of that M1009 to keep those big back windows in one piece if you want to tackle the harder trails and hard lines around here.

[gCracker]

Welcome.. well the bad news is the closest real crawling you will find will be about 3 hours from Cornell at Rausch Creek, the good news is that our members usually take a trip down there at least once a month.  There is also going to another 6,000 acre park opening up in the near future about an hour closer that should offer more crawling.  

[motormayhem]

Ok cool. The cucv doesn\'t like highway driving (top speed is 60) but it could manage it. Besides crawling are there places to explore and wheel closer that are still difficult enought to need 4x4. I also enjoy just going out  and exploring ghost towns or abandoned mines, etc. Basically what is there to do locally in the way of day wheeling?

[Ryan_25]

This is NY. There is no place to legally wheel on state land. There are no ghost towns or mines anywhere close to here. NY is not like AZ. People dont let you wheel on the land they own, greenies have closed all the state park to wheeling and the only 4x4 you need here is when it snows. :-)

[MrMindless]

Ryan is about right.  There\'s plenty of exploring to do, but all of it can be done in a car with OK ground clearance :(

[motormayhem]

Damn, down here in az there is probably 25 trails within an hour of my house and 10 abandoned mining towns, and with a state land permit there is even more. But that is starting to change here as greenies also are trying and have closed numerous trails in the last year with a bunch more facing the chopping block :(

Well looks like I will have to get some bigger tires or an overdrive for the highway.

[ollllllo]

i think its pretty safe to say we are all jealous of the abundance of wheeling close to you in AZ.

I guess we as NEW YORKERS have become accustomed to traveling a minimum of 3 hours for any kind of respectable wheeling.

like cracker said, we typically have a group traveling somewhere at least a couple times a month. we do travel to Albany (2.5 hours), for some private land owned by another club.

welcome to the forum and do stay in touch and maybe you can join us on the trails.


    :welcome:

[motormayhem]

Alright, well tomorrow is the deadline to decide where I am going and it is gonna be Cornell. So I will be heading up there sometime in August to start there and will have to meet up with you guys and do some wheeling. Not sure if I will bring the truck yet but I will definalty hang out on the forums when I startup there and let you guys know.

[motormayhem]

One more quick question. Do most of you trailer your rigs to the parks in PA or drive them?

[MrMindless]

Driving is not unheard of but I think the majority of us who do go down there trailer.

I used to drive, and I still like to keep my rig streetable(-ish) but it\'s nice to not have to worry about breaking when wheeling, and just knowing I can drag it back to the trailer.  It\'s all in how you want to treat your ride and what terrain you want to run.  If you don\'t want to run the \"buggy lines\" and don\'t throttle through driving down is just fine.  Sometimes I miss the looks I\'d always get on the highway in the Dakota....

[CoraC143]

One thing not mentioned yet: Congrats on getting into Cornell!

Oh, and there is a ghost town near where we go wheeling in PA called Centrailia. There are underground coal fires in the veins below the town so the state bought up the town and demolished most of the structures. You can see steam floating out of vents all around town. There is also a section of highway that was closed because the road opened up. Check out our galleries, here are some pictures OllllO and I took of the town.

[motormayhem]

Thanks,

Actually we stopped by there last summer when we were driving through Pennsylvania. :-)

http://www.motormayhem.net/2009/06/28/centralia-pa/trackback/

[ollllllo]

Cenntrailia was a lot of fun. We explored every road and trail in every direction. The rain made it seem like it was a movie set!