WindRock ride...

February 21, 2009: Saturday… Today was our jeep ride to WindRock. And even though we had to get up super early, it was worth it! We had a great time!

The Blevins house (Mike, Renee, Brianna & Brittany) woke up around 4:45am… Yes, that’s crazy early for a Saturday!

We left our house around 5:45 and met up with Mack & Liz at Sears Essentials in East Ridge at 6:30. From there we drove to the Ooltewah Bi-Lo to meet up with Eddie, Ricky & Gale and Gary & Brenda. By this time it was 7:00 and we headed for Athens to meet Ray at Hardees by 7:30. And one final stop at the Sweetwater exit to pick up Brian, Brianna & Carl at 8:00. Once we finally had everyone together we made the drive to Oliver Springs, TN. After one last stop to fill up on gas, I believe it was right around 9:45 by the time we made it into the Coal Creek OHV area.

Here we are lined up as we decided who was going to ride the trails and who was going to take the scenic route back. We had one more person join us before we headed into the trails. He’s not in this photo, but Cody from Virginia met up with us here.

While here, those of us who were hitting the trails purchased our permits for the day. The permits were $17 per person, and this was the only part I didn't like about the WindRock ride! We've paid per vehicle on other riding trips, but this is the first time we've had to pay for each person in the jeep. (So for me, Mike and the girls we had to pay $68 - crazy!)

Ray Luisa from the Ragtop Roadrunners planned today's ride for us. Ray, along with Brian & Cody also belong to the TN Virtual Jeep Club. Big thanks to Ray for getting everyone together. He did a great job being our ride leader!

Even though we called this our "WindRock ride", we were actually riding in the Coal Creek OHV Area. I took a picture of this sign heading in on trail #21. A little background on Coal Creek:

The Coal Creek Company, established in 1872, currently owns 72,000 acres of land in East Tennessee. The Company, through its contractors and lessees, is involved in the development of natural resources including timber, coal, oil, natural gas and coal-bed methane.

You pass these pumping stations all along the trails. We passed too many to keep count, but they were everywhere. Just driving along in the woods and all of a sudden there would be a row of these things!

There are 18 wind turbines on Buffalo Mountain which produce approximately 48 million KWH. The fifteen large turbines have a 256 foot tower with 139 foot blades and span 395 feet at full height.

I'm guessing this is why it's called Wind Rock!

I would have taken more pictures of the turbines but it was super windy (as you would imagine) on top of this mountain! These things were spinning quite fast, I think my camera did pretty good capturing them in a still frame.

Here are the 5 jeeps who dared to ride the trails! Ray's red jeep, our silver jeep, Brian's dark green jeep, Eddie's white jeep and Cody's dark blue jeep - we made a nice little rainbow of colors... hahaha!!

I'll have to get details from the 3 jeepers who took the scenic ride (Mack & Liz, Ricky & Gale and Gary & Brenda), but here are some pictures from the trails.....

The 3 kids along for the ride - Brittany, my Brianna, and Brian's Brianna.

It was just a little muddy!!

A few hours after we left the wind turbines, we were across the mountain and could barely see them from this view, the turbines look like little sticks from this distance. There were suppose to be 18 turbines on the mountain, from this spot on the trail we were able to see and count 17 of them. I have to say it was quite a neat thing for the kids to hear about. Ray even had all the statistics and was able to tell us all about them and how they worked. Way to fit in an educational lesson on the ride Ray!

Ray leading us on the trails...

There were several places where water tricking down the hills had frozen. It was pretty scenery...

No one got stuck, no one had to be pulled out of anything (although Mike did pull a broken down 4-wheeler from a trail onto one of the main gravel roads). Of the 160 miles of trails that are in the Coal Creek area, I think we traveled about 40 miles (a quarter of what's out there)! We stopped a few times along the trails, but for the most part we drove on the trails from 10:00 to about 6:00.

WindRock is known mostly as an ATV (4-wheeler & dirt bike) sanctuary. Mike had been there before on our 4-wheelers, but this was the first time we've been in the jeep. And while it was fun, we're planning to take the 4-wheelers back very soon!

(note: this post is not yet complete, more details to be added after the next jeep club meeting on 3/2/09)