PARAGON ADVENTURE PARK TRAIL RATINGS: in PA.

[levy1]

Anyone rode there before? I just received the info. It says 140 miles of trails. Could it be dirt heaven? Its about 3 hours from me here in Germantown Maryland.

[THUMPINGOOD]

Levy1,

A member named Huffa lives in Penn. I believe he rides Red so put a post on the Honda CRF450 forum or private message him, it sounds like he has ridden in alot of places and is very helpful and always looking for new places to try.

LATER, THUMPINGOOD

[huffa]

I have been to Paragon and Tower city. Only been to Paragon once but from the experiance I had it is lots of tight trails with rocks. Some you must be careful because once you go down the steep hill into a hollow there is no way out except back up. For a lessr skilled rider just beware! In no way did I even tap all the trails and it was back in March of 02 so things could have improved. I'd recommend it for sure. Tons of jeep were up there also. That's what it started out as and later they allowed the bikes. It's fun just pulling over and watching these guys. These are very HOPPED up jeeps. And some sections that are say 3,4, or 500 foot and take 1/2 to an hour to do. Thier the type that the passenger gets out and helps the driver over boulders.

Tower City is really cool too. You got tower city and rausch creek being actually neighbors! If you trail ride at tower and know the way you can go to rausch (motox park) by trails. When you pull in the main entrance to pay at the office (at tower) and then continue on up the roads there are little sheds and camping trailers eveywhere. It's like a little city with every kind of bike and 4 wheeler imaginable! Your membership includes picking your lot and you can landscape it, cut down trees and have your own little home there. Some guys even have a satalite dish! I don't belong to it but on occassion go up with freinds that do. I'd recommed Tower 1st I think before Paragon. They have a web site also. Not sure if it's towercity.com or what but give it a try. Tower is 10 minutes or so from route 209 and 81 intersection. Raucch is like 30 seconds up 209 from 81.

Check it out, I'm sure you'll have a GREAT TIME!

[sabooo]

Greetings!

We used to ride the trails that are now Parragon before they bought them. Basically, its just like everything around it, power lines, lots of tight technical stuff, rocks abundant, etc. There are lots of trails, but to be perfectly honest I'd never pay to ride any of them.

Northeastern PA is simply full of abandoned strip mines which can be ridden for free. Miles and miles of trails, large open 'play areas' and all sorts of good riding without ever having to register, sign in, or pay dues. Parragon basically saw an area that people rode, bought the land, posted it and started trying to charge admission.

Tower city is much more worth the money (half the price for a year membership, and unless you know a member who will take you as a guest you'll need to join to ride)

Apologies to sound bitter about Parragon, but its bad enough when the enviromental folks start fencing off trails, let alone when 'fellow riders' start doing it.

For what its worth, we put in about 4 miles away from their border now, and the riding is better still. The coal cops are always a bit of a concern, but provided your park your truck legally you're pretty well set.

[huffa]

Since they bought it are they making any more trails or improving the ones they have? Is there anything at all that you benifit from with them buying the land? If not then I'd surley recommend Tower City over that. They are always making new trails and improvements.

[sabooo]

I would agree about tower city being the better choice of the two. Its a bit farther for me to go out that way, though. 75 miles to Tower City, 35 miles to weatherly. Not a hard call ? At this point the parragon people have not announced any improvements to the bike trails that i'm aware of. They seem to be spending most of their resources trying to inspire folks to pay their fee by either confronting people at the widely used 'pull-offs' or by phoning in trespassing complaints about people who are riding the land around what they now own (rumour only here, but evidence supports it as there is suddenly alot of newfound police pressure on surrounding areas.)

[weekendtoy98DR]

Whats the deal with Tower City saying you need a "member" to ride there?They wont let anyone in who is a non-member but still willing to pay a fee to ride for the day?

[sabooo]

I just looked into this.. they will give you a one day pass for @$20 to check the place out even if you dont know a member. When i went it was with a quad guy who i work with. If you plan on having a look, i'd suggest going on a sunday. After the fellowship service there are some officers who give a nice (long) guided tour of the main trails of the place and show you the landmarks so that if you do decide to join you have a little bit of an idea of what's where. Be sure you are topped up on fuel, though.. its about a 30 miler if i remember right. Skill level for this ride is fairly low, and if people are having a hard time keeping up they will slow the pace. Advanced riders are expected to slow themselves while on this ride for the benefit of the more inexperienced folks.

And to actually answer what you said.. Tower city is not a pay to ride place. They are a non-profit organization that serves a membership very much like a club. They also frown on bringing more than 3 guests at a time, to be honest. Compare their $175 annual dues to places that charge $40 a visit to ride and its pretty reasonable. We rode all day there and passed about a dozen other people all day, its really that kind of huge. Traxx, parragon, etc all charge much more for memberships and for one day rides. Because tower city is not for profit you are expected to help out once a year with cleanup, and a few other added responsibilites, though.

Having said all that, i should point out that i dont belong to tower city, nor do i plan to join at any point in the near future. The folks i know that belong to it seem to like it well enough, though.

[gp2266]

Tower city is allright ,a bit rocky but no big deal . If you go with out a guide i recomend bringing a gps because their maps are useless and the trails a barely marked.If your interested email me gp2266@aol.com ill take a ride. Ill also be out at hot water street on Sunday.

[FroggerXCF]

I went to Paragon earlier this year and had a pretty decent time. Some of the rock gardens were crazy, but I think it will get better over time.

[WR_Jason]

Paragon its self is a decent day of riding unless you like to really stay in the saddle for more than 3 hours at a stint. I ride the area all the time, its my main rip. I stay at the adjacnet camp ground called 8 Bs, 8 Bs rulez!!! they are much more relaxed than the Pargon boys. Paragon itself sits on some of the most Knarley goat hill rock trails I have ever ridden. Im talking about forget the quad cause youll never make it rocks! It is primaraly a jeep park but that was costing the rich boys to much to maintain their own private play ground and they saw $$$$$ in all the quads so they opened it up and struck a deal with 8 Bs. I pay $10 a day to camp at 8 Bs and get full use of Paragon. You do have to follow there rules wich are a bit strict compared to 8 Bs, but hey, I always were my helmet, boots and full equipment anyway. They do require you to be in a group of at least 2 or more. Paragons area is really quite small compared to the overall riding area up there but every time I go up there are new trails in the making. Teh tails are well marked and the maps are accurate and have gps cords. You can ride from Lofty to Hazelton, to White Haven, back and more. I stay in the safer funner areas most of the time, I dont want any hassles, but we go out for some rides that leave at 10 AM and come back in around 5 PM!!! All and all, its a GREAT riding area with EVERYTHING, wooded single track trails, rock beded power and pipe lines, hard pack hills, silt hills, MX play areas, doubble and tripple coal jumps, Creek crossings, neat stuff to see to, resiviors, coal mine shafts, water falls, overlooks and more. The water in the resiviors lakes is clean miniral water so its nice to swim in on hot days! Really wicked rope swing up there too!!! I have met tons of nice locals that will show you every and anything if you warm up to them and ask to tag along. I know a few people who have permanant sites up at 8 Bs and I have been riding there for years, I know the Bonners and they let me camp out there with out the guest but 8 Bs is an exclusive club and you have to know someone to get in more or less. I used to just park and ride like was mentioned but hey, the $20 for two days is ok in my book to help support the the cause and make sure no one messes with my truck. There is a new mini mart that you can ride right into and fuel up and pig out too!!!! I still have not seen everything. I have a list of phone #s for locals I met over the years and I give them a ring when Im up there or meet up with them on the trail and say, show me someting new,,, they almost always do. I got some cool pics of the area if anyone want to see em, I got some cool pics of jeeps climbing in the winter too! I also have GPS maps of the area somewhere, I dont use my GPS there anymore, I like getting lost!!!!

There was some bad blood there with the Paragon boys for a few years, these guys used to patrol state fire rodes with fully automatic assult guns and chase you off land they did not even own. They have calmed down alot since those days.

Be aware if you ride a quad they will bolt a flag to your quad!!! Bikes just need a florecent ribbion on the brake line up on the handle bar.

Tower City rocks too! they have GPS maps you can DL into your GPS on there site, membership is cheap and its a good crowd. They are planning on adding bath houses soon to from what they tell me.

I love the Hazelton area thought, 1 hour and 30 minutes away, cant beat that and be leagal.

Also, the area on the East side of 309 in McaDoo was just bought by,,,,, guese who??????? Yup, Paragon, they have been seen chasing people around over there and they have some excavating equipment and are grading over there. You can still ride but the trick is DONT SIT AROUND ON TOP OF THE BIG HILLS DRINKING BEERS FOR 30 MINS!!!! Everyone in a 10 mile radious can see you up there!!! go sit somewhere else in the woods ?.

If anyone wants to try and hook up up there let me know when your going up. I can try to hook you up. You have to kind of know a few tricks to get from spot to spot like where the secret Drainage tunnels are to get under the Interstaes .

[sabooo]

I suppose thats the part of it that bugs me. I grew up just a bit south of McAdoo (Delano) and we used to ride those pits all the time. The folks who get screwed by this are the local riders, more than anyone. For 30 years most of these places have been classified as abandoned land, and been open to general access. To have someone buy up these places for pennies an acre and give the kids who've ridden these trails since they've been riding sh*t for being there stinks, IMO.

Also, if you have a nice fast internet connection and are looking for good maps of PA, the old geo survey maps are still available for free download at the following url. The files are big, and the maps are HUGE. No individual trails shown, but anything as big as a dirt road is marked so if you're so inclined to mark your trails on a printed map...

DRG MAP LIST

[tbronc]

DRG MAP LIST

if you don't have Mega RAM to open the large files in your fav editor, do a search for "microdem" or "terrabase" on google.

It's a pretty small and FREE program that deals with the large files very well. (I used to use it on a 133 Mhz Compaq with less than 24MB of ram.

You can get "DEM" files which it uses to make 3-D maps and "DOQQ" aerial photos as well. Very cool.

It was a little buggy last time I used it, but it doesn't bother me, you'd have to spend thousands to get a commercial program to do all that it can.

-- For even more stuff, browse ftp://www.pasda.psu.edu if your willing to dig a little you can find ALOT. Also a bunch of enviro type surveys.

[sabooo]

I suppose this thread is officially hijacked now... Those DRG maps can be imported directly into a program called oziexplorer, which is also capable of upload/downloading to your GPS unit. What this basically means if you can plot out your trail on your GPS and link to your computer to see where you've been, mark locations on the map for others to see, etc. Very very nice stuff. You'll need the registered version, or a program that can convert those huge .tif files to BMP's to do it all, though.