Trip Planning - South WV to NC (Complete w pics)

[GATORB8]

My wife has a work event at the Greenbrier in Southern WV the first week of November, and we were thinking of making the trip back to Charlotte a long weekend adventure. Right now looks like I'll be flying into Roanoke to meet her and the Jeep and spending Thurs night at the Greenbrier before heading out.

We haven't done the section of the Blue Ridge Parkway from Roanoke to Boone/Blowing Rock so that's an option for the primary route although the MABDR looks pretty interesting.

Anyone have any experience with:

1. Pott's Mountain Jeep Trail in the Jefferson National Forrest
2. The Mid Atlantic Backcountry Discovery Route
3. Bear Wallow, Ethel, WV (JBOH) (this takes us several hours out of the way)

Was thinking either kicking off with either Pott's or Bear Wallow on a Friday, then:

Pott's -> BRP -> Blowingrock - Probably Stop in Wytheville/Claw of the Dragon
Pott's -> MABDR (Near Pott's) -> Damascas
Green Brier -> Bear Wallow -> MABDR (I77) -> Damascas

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[Tagoren06]

There are several Badge of Honer trails you can do near this route you have in mind. We are planning a trip along a similar route for next with our group. Take a min to look those trails up and it might be a good start for you.

 

[GATORB8]

We got back home yesterday, and figured I'd do a little trip report.

We stayed at the Greenbrier until Saturday morning. We did a SxS guided trip on the Greenbrier property and had a blast (and got filthy). Just happened to meet the owner of the SxS tour (he also does their Jeep tours) and got to talking about our plans to go to Potts. Well, when we got back from the trip, he spoke with us and rather than doing Potts, he invited us to go out with some guys on Saturday on a private trail, which was the "Bunny Trail" from the Jeep Jamboree there last month.

We were the smallest Jeep of the four. A 4 door and 2 door on 37s, and a 4 door JK with a 6.2 LS3 swap, D60s, and 40s. We were spotted by a couple of the guys on the Owner's crew, real pros. The Bunny Trail ended up being a pretty solid run up a wet creek bed up the side of the mountain. Tested all the skids, and drug sliders the whole way up. We did bypass a spot towards the top that the two on 37s had to pull line on.

After running the trail, we headed to the Salem, VA area and jumped on the BRP just in time for sunset and ran that down to Wytheville for the night.

We jumped on the MABDR from Wytheville (Brushy Mountain Outfitters entrance) and ran it all the way to Damascas at the TN/VA border.

This section of the MABDR was fun, but could definitely be run in a stock jeep in 2wd. Mix of two lane highway, gravel, and two track. It's very well planned and we had no problem following the all-trails map navigation. I don't think I'd want to run it with a full size truck due to some tight switchbacks, but no problem making the turns in the JLU.

 

[GATORB8]

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