For those saltier folks who like to ride off road...
I just did this years event of their 24 yrs of running it - hadn't even heard of it.
Rode up Friday afternoon and got some traffic in Harrisburg but not bad. Set up camp at the airfield under some lovely trees and beautiful level grass.
Found out the next day the ride didn't start until 1100 am ...which everybody griped about. This is a VERY well attended event and they just opened up a new Adventure Ride for the "big bikes". The preponderance of bikes are up to about 500cc.
Of course, my buddy on his 990KTM and I wanted the challenge so we rode the main ride without doing any options. The course layout is spectacular! The ride takes place in Bald Eagle Park near Loch Raven, PA. Of all the single track and rocky jeep trails we encountered 2 particularly difficult spots for the "big bikes". The first one is about 10 miles into the 108 mile ride, a very steep rocky climb of about 100yds. On the first attempt I bounced my way up to laying down the bike. The second attempt, I thought I had it until the front wheel jumped clear across the track bouncing off a large loose rock and as I was in pretty full on throttle, I found out that a R1200 GS Adventure could climb a tree, if you let it!!! I'm standing off pegs by now as the bike went up the tree and I was able to wrestle the behemoth to the left and we both fell back down the rocky road....thank god I wasn't under it! Some guys helped me up, caught my breath and we muscled and clutch burned the bike up the last 20 ft... then we had to get my buddies KTM up and ended up letting a crazy dude ride up the embankment at full throttle in 2nd - flying and bouncing his way up...quite an event to say the least.
We were told that was the worst of it and on our merry way we went...right back into some more rock single track... it wasn't bad comparatively. The next hour was dirt roads, grassy single track and then about 20 miles from home one more good rock climb. I watched a bunch of the little bikes go up with some difficulty...we waited and studied and I went for it - about 100 yds pretty steep broken loose rock about the size of softballs and bigger - keep your momentum, steady throttle, pick your line, goose it as needed, keep that front wheel pointed UP the hill, as I bounced my way up until the last 10 feet when the bike took a slew to the left where I compensated and brought it back with a little too much throttle and flew over the top onto the trail at the top, across the trail up an embankment up into the bushes!! Now I'm sitting 10 feet up this knoll stopped and laughing my ass off - I made the climb but got into another pickle. I remembered the rule with the beast is to point it and accelerate...I went straight across the knoll to an opening that had a 5 foot drop down to the trail, which I negotiated with some trepidation. Once down and stopped, all the guys standing around are looking at us like we're too nut jobs to ride these big bikes up there. We beemed as our off-road ability showed up the lighter bikes...great fun.
Nice dusty ride back to the camp down some spectacular scenery. Got there, packed up the tent and rode the 3.5hr ride home as I had to be here to feed the cat and give her her meds.
What a day - what a great event. To be noted - the entry fee of $40 for 1-day or 80 for 2-day with pre-reg $5 discount doesn't cover food - $5 for breakfast and $12 for dinner and they catch you also with $10 for camping coming in.
They have ok bathrooms, shower and good cell service all day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9G4vTk94Z8