From a friend in a sister club:
I wheeled a place in VA over the weekend. Crabtree Falls trail near Montebello, VA. It's a 9.5 mile green/blue trail with lots of black off-shoots and plenty of camping sites. The trail connects two highways through National Forest over The Preist mountain and it's perfectly legal. In fact, a Sheriff in a Cherokee pulled up behind us and talked for a while. He even gave us some guide help on which trail to take. I wouldn't go with more than 6 vehicles though. It is a narrow trail, few passing opportunities, and two-way traffic!
If you look on Microsoft streets and Trips, the trailhead is Meadows Ln off of Hwy 56 near Montebello, VA. On the map it appears that the road ends in 2 miles. Wrong. This is where the fun begins. The first two miles are just a gravel road. You will come to a hiking trailhead(The AT runs through here). There are bathrooms and a parking lot. If you continue on, the trail goes another 7.5 miles. It starts off very green and gets better and better. A bone-stock, small 4wd can make it the whole way without a scratch. There are probably some two dozen "by-passes" that range from blue to high black. There are serveral hill climbs and two large play areas with lots of obstacles. The trail ends at Lowesville/Piney River, VA.

This is a known trail. I didn't discover anything. You will find people here. I was there Sunday and met the Richmond, Capital City Crawlers Jeep Club, and two Land Rover clubs along the way.

Wow, that sounds nice. I wouldn't mind riding that sometime. Care to organize a trip?

Looks like a road friendly jeep trip, well see what happens in the next few weeks.

I'm game. If there is alot of interest keeping the groups small is key. maybe even try doing this on a week day depending on how far away it is.

I think a week day would make it hard for most people. Maybe we can organize a group of 10 max per session. That's a manegable number.

Ten is too big of a group unless it was spilt in to five and five. A weekday would work for some that can take or have days that they dont work. Also there would be less of a crowd out there if we were trying to learn and explore the area.

I can run on a tues or thurs

how far away is it from baltimore, and i guess these would have to be tagged vehicles or can i park the trailer at the roads end and take my jeep in on the trail,, i just took mine off the road.

that sucks I love driving on the street in my jeep. but on the other hand it lets not have to worry about whats legal or not.

I may be interested too, but also would have to be able to trailer my rig up there.

Yeah and its three hours from me off of 81 so i would think that the trip would take anyone outside of my area longer. Bill is about the same distance from 81 as I am.

mapquest shows it being 3 hours and 45 minutes from my sisters house. Good news is if a small group of us go I might be able to get my sister to let us camp on her land that is about 30 minutes away from her farm. I will check with her this week. Montebello, VA is near Lexington and thats just south of Stuarts Daft which is where my sisters farm is. I might run out there with my brother inlaw on my own to see what its all about. This could be good. Bill its about a hour and half or so from the rest stop we met up with everyone on our way to Tellico.

Cool.

About 5 hours for me and I cry about my 1 - 1.5 hour drive to rausch