Bald Eagle State Forest PA

Dang the spots I’ve been a semi could have driven in.

I’d say everything I did was stock friendly. Even Negro, but it was the spiciest.

 

Yeah, Negro looked like something I’d laugh at when wheeling with friends, but solo isn’t the same.

I guess my next major concern would be pinstriping. I get it, it’s a truck, but I feel differently about my 150 mile ‘21 Voodoo than I did about my ‘11 88k mile 2nd Gen.

Looks like the trails are pretty tight and it might behoove me to suck it up and get the $650 GOAT armor magnets. Ugh.

 

Yeah pin stripes are no joke around bald eagle. Definitely got my share of them on the trails. The goat armor is cool from what I’ve seen online never seen it in person. Just remember to take it off after trips.

So far I’ve done everything solo as well, it does make it way more interesting. Especially because I had almost no beta on my first trip. Hoping to get a crew together this spring and summer for a few trips.

 

Yeah, I’ve seen them, each trip I notate sites to try to book for the next one. There are some really amazing ones.

 

Sounds like a great time for sure!

 

Heading to BESF for Memorial Day weekend!
Always looking for others to run the trails. If your interested in camping and off-roading hit me up.

 

Figure I’d follow up on my trip from last weekend.

Gorgeous HOT weather but it was nice in the shade.

I used Purple Lizard to plan an extensive 2-3 day route through much of the forest.

I did have my GOAT armor on. Honestly I was second guessing my $600 purchase after the first day. We did long stretches of unmaintained drivable trail and they were plenty wide. Also, we have had SO LITTLE rain that there was literally 2-3 small tiny puddles the entire trip. Things were bone dry.

towards the end of the second day, I got to Henstep Valley trail. Went in about 100 yards and noticed that there were a TON of low dead thick pine branches. You know how the lower branches of big pines die and they look all open and ugly at the bottom…these were those branches.

GOAT armor or not, these were a problem for me in my 2000 mile ‘21 with that sexy Voodoo paint. These branches were not flexible and were sharp. And they are right at hood scraping height.

started with the wife and I hopping out to snap the dead branches that were in the way. Then around 7:30 pm it was getting dark quickly in the forest and we had only made it less than 1/4 of the way because we were getting out to clear these nasty branches every 100 feet or so.

also the mosquitos attaked every time we were working on clearing anything. Eyes. Nose. Ears. Really not fun.

by this time my 7 year old is in tears hollering she wants to go home and ever do this. Lol.

so I found a spot up ahead that I could Austin Powers a 40 point turn and finagle us around back the way we came while trying not to high side off the lower dropoff side of the trail.

felt wimpy giving up, but I wasn’t about to break dead branches until 10 pm in the dark, or need an entire hood repaint after 2000 miles.

for what it’s worth, the GOAT armor did perfectly where it was. It stayed on the entire trip at 80 mph on the way up, and getting hit by brush on the trail.

the only scratches I got were on the black plastic fender flares and on my tail light lenses.

Trip was awesome though. Even though I got skunked on trout despite hitting up the supposedly best places on Penn’s and Bald Eagle Creek. Caught one horny headed chub…so there’s that. Lol.

Feathered Hook was a great fly shop. Recommend stopping in there.

elk creek brewing had good food and decent beers after a long day on the trails.

got some cool pictures of a giant owl that landed next to us on a trail, and a porcupine stumbling along in front of us. Those are on my real camera so I don’t have them handy yet.

saw the most radiant red bird I’ve ever seen, unfortunately dead in the middle of the trail. Apparently is a kind of protected species in PA, so it was sad but interesting.

we did the Penn’s Cave tour which was really cool. I was jealous of the LUNKER trout in the cave pool where we got on the boat lol.

 

Thanks for breaking branches. Im planning on going later this summer! Hahah.

 

Headed to BESF on Friday for the long weekend!!

 

Wish I had some of that GOAT armor for sure.

 

Made it to BESF for Memorial Day weekend 05/29-31st. Definitely rainy, but had a lot of fun. Due to the weather a bunch of people in our group backed out. I only got on one “trail”, Poe Paddy drive and it was tame, but great view at the end. Even convinced my friend to join me in his high mileage second gen for its first offroad experience.
Luckily the rain and temperature kept the bugs at bay, 40 degrees one night!

 

A few more images from the Memorial Day weekend trip. Fun group of friends.

 

OP - Where is that open area in your fourth pic? Looks fun

 

In the first set of pics, that big open area was just some random hillside we came across, not on a trail but on the side of the road. Maybe towards the middle of the park, sorry I can’t help more.

 

Cool trip thanks

 

I've been looking for some good solo spots near me. This one looks great! thanks for sharing.

 

I’ve got to make it back out here to do some exploring on 4 wheels and on two!

 

Hi all,

I’m heading back up to bald eagle this weekend, staying in Spring Mills. I also went to Bald Eagle and Penn’s Creek in Miflinburg area a couple of weeks ago.

I think it could make sense for me to head west to Rothrock this weekend since I haven’t checked that out yet. Worth it?

At this point I’ve driven 90% off the off-road / high clearance roads in Bald Eagle, so figured it could be nice to switch it up?

Also, with decent rain this season, the other week, Negro Hollow Road / Sharpback Hollow was tons of fun. I had no worries because I was also with an FJ on 33’s and proper suspension. Zero issues with even getting mildly stuck, though.

As much as I’d like to freak out my wife and daughter this weekend and hit it again, it’s just dicey enough that I don’t want to go alone. One stupid hidden rock in the muddy water could be all I need to get hung up…skill, truck capability, and traction boards or not.

Anyway, mostly in 2H, good amount of 4H and in super bumpy areas and in the thick muck I briefly went to 4L for some control. Never any locker situation or MTS doing any work, and crawl control is just painfully slow lol

Some pics from the other week here below.

Unless you advise against, I’m going to start studying my Rothrock purple lizard map for Friday’s trip. Looking forward to the Elk Creek Cafe, as well.

 

I'm heading up July 4th weekend to camp, fish and cruise around. I'm going to be checking out some areas north of Bald Eagle in Sproul State Forest. Looks like a lot of old logging roads up there.

 

how was the trip?

I’m in eastern PA and about to pickup a ‘22 TRD OR DCLB and plan to make a trip out there.