"New" Park in PA

Beerj · Aug 12, 2022

DCNR Acquires 5,600-Acre Property in Schuylkill, Luzerne Counties For Motorized Recreation Area

On August 12, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn announced the acquisition of a 5,600-acre parcel o...

paenvironmentdaily.blogspot.com

For those in the know, this property used to be Paragon.

jeeptj99 · Aug 12, 2022

Beerj said:
DCNR Acquires 5,600-Acre Property in Schuylkill, Luzerne Counties For Motorized Recreation Area

On August 12, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn announced the acquisition of a 5,600-acre parcel o...

paenvironmentdaily.blogspot.com

For those in the know, this property used to be Paragon.

My buddy used to own the jeep that did all the recovery and **** there. the doors he had on it you could still see the paragon stickers.

Beerj · Aug 12, 2022

From what I understand, it's a much better park than even Rausch. Of course being run by the same people as aoaa, there's bound to be a million rules but at least prices should be somewhat reasonable. RC might actually have to reconsider their prices at that point

ridered3 · Aug 12, 2022

Beerj said:
From what I understand, it's a much better park than even Rausch. Of course being run by the same people as aoaa, there's bound to be a million rules but at least prices should be somewhat reasonable. RC might actually have to reconsider their prices at that point

Maybe some competition will help get things back in line.

Or it'll make things worse to "help differentiate us from them."

Wagfabulous · Aug 12, 2022

No matter the rules at least they are establishing another place to ride . I live in middle tn in a very rural area . In last 10 years land has went from 2500 an acre to 10,000 plus an acre in my area . There will come a day in my lifetime where 5600 acres will not be available to buy let alone purchase for an ohv park I'm afraid. Support your parks none the less.

Beerj · Aug 12, 2022

Wagfabulous said:
No matter the rules at least they are establishing another place to ride . I live in middle tn in a very rural area . In last 10 years land has went from 2500 an acre to 10,000 plus an acre in my area . There will come a day in my lifetime where 5600 acres will not be available to buy let alone purchase for an ohv park I'm afraid. Support your parks none the less.

You're absolutely right. Realistically, I only have like 2 parks that are close enough to drive to and wheel in a day. This would make 3. I can cover most of the challenging stuff at Rausch in a day and still exploring aoaa. I'm definitely excited to have another close option. I wheeled it once, briefly, since Paragon closed and liked what I saw.

Wagfabulous · Aug 12, 2022

Beerj said:
You're absolutely right. Realistically, I only have like 2 parks that are close enough to drive to and wheel in a day. This would make 3. I can cover most of the challenging stuff at Rausch in a day and still exploring aoaa. I'm definitely excited to have another close option. I wheeled it once, briefly, since Paragon closed and liked what I saw.

Your talking to a guy that used to leave his house and ride all day and never hit the same trail twice . 129 miles exact on four wheeler. Now I have to drive/haul my jeep at least 45min to ride . The only thing that comes to mind now is where will my kids ride . They will never know the riding I had just setting at my feet . I hate to rant but whether your driving a 100k rock bouncer or 1000 dollar 250 recon , everybody needs a place to go .

yankster · Aug 13, 2022

I first came to PA in 2011 doing pipeline work, and through Hardline quickly met up with other wheelers. The first thing I heard was 'man you should have been here a while back Paragon was the best park around". If I remember it was supposed to be blasted flat to build an airport? Not sure how all that went down.
Really looking forward to it reopening, not to mention it should be 45 minutes closer to me than Rausch or AOAA.

TBItoy · Aug 13, 2022

My parents farm borders the Natchez Trace State forest, and the Unimin sand pits were only a few miles away. I didn't know how good we had it. Several days worth of riding and didn't even think about a trailer.

It's good to see more stuff opening up in PA. No reason that a state with that size and geography shouldn't have an OHV area (state or private) every couple hundred miles at least.

People talk **** about California a lot, but at least they have legal riding areas that are accessable from basically every major city.

Beerj · Aug 14, 2022

yankster said:
I first came to PA in 2011 doing pipeline work, and through Hardline quickly met up with other wheelers. The first thing I heard was 'man you should have been here a while back Paragon was the best park around". If I remember it was supposed to be blasted flat to build an airport? Not sure how all that went down.
Really looking forward to it reopening, not to mention it should be 45 minutes closer to me than Rausch or AOAA.

The story I heard was the landowner pulled the lease from the folks running Paragon to build an airport only to realize after the fact that he couldn't get the permits to do so. But I guess it took years to come to that conclusion so it wasn't like they could just say nevermind and reopen the park. The property has been leased out to at least 1 hunting club in recent years. But I always heard the same thing, "too bad you never got to wheel Paragon".

baldduck74 · Aug 16, 2022

Not PA but anyone have any info on a new 50,000 acre park opening down by Hazard Kentucky

ridered3 · Aug 16, 2022

That's all I've got on it so far which was sent from @Markrobinson

baldduck74 · Aug 16, 2022

ridered3 said:
That's all I've got on it so far which was sent from @Markrobinson
View attachment 207581

My son was saying something about it last

ridered3 · Aug 16, 2022

baldduck74 said:
My son was saying something about it last

That's all I've seen so far. May have to make a Harlan trip and a Leatherwood trip on the same go around.

baldduck74 · Aug 17, 2022

ridered3 said:
That's all I've seen so far. May have to make a Harlan trip and a Leatherwood trip on the same go around.

Be something if they got it where they could connect the 2

ridered3 · Aug 17, 2022

baldduck74 said:
Be something if they got it where they could connect the 2

That would be pretty cool.

Afarmer1062 · Aug 17, 2022

From what I've read and heard Leatherwood is mostly all just coal haul roads. I think they're working on making some other trails still.

ForMud · Aug 19, 2022

Beerj said:
The story I heard was the landowner pulled the lease from the folks running Paragon to build an airport only to realize after the fact that he couldn't get the permits to do so. But I guess it took years to come to that conclusion so it wasn't like they could just say nevermind and reopen the park. The property has been leased out to at least 1 hunting club in recent years. But I always heard the same thing, "too bad you never got to wheel Paragon".

If I remember correctly, people went to jail over it too.........Too bad you never got to wheel Paragon. There you heard it one more time.
I got to ride there maybe half a dozen times be it got closed down. I never rode more than half the place, but it made RC (At the time) look like a joke. I still have a map of the place hanging up on my wall.
I'll wait and see how the new place shakes out before considering on going.
On a side note, spent a couple of days at Famous Reading last month. Don't bother at this point, not worth the $. One semi hard trail and good comp coarse is about it. Lots of potential ( Like AOAA) Keep hearing the locals know where to wheel there......Sure wasn't on map you needed to pay for to download.