On 16 Jan 2020, the Florida chapter of Black Goat Off-Road Club, consisting of Herb (aka KBar) traveled with a group of Jeepers from the Tampa based Florida Trail Stompers (FTS) to the Stony Lonesome OHV Park located in Bremen, Alabama.
Stony Lonesome OHV Park is situated on about 1500 acres, about nine miles off Interstate 65, exit 299. The park caters to 4x4 vehicles, side by sides, motorcycles, and other all terrain vehicles and has trails for every level of vehicle/driver. The park charges $15.00 for one day, but gave a discount for subsequent days. Day two of wheeling only cost $5.00. The park has camping available and offers several cabins consisting of two bunk beds, four wall lockers such as found in a high school gym, and a full bathroom with toilet, sink, and shower. The cost for the four person cabin was $45.00 plus tax per night. The park also has full size single wide mobile homes that can be rented for about $100.00 per night as well as RV parking and tent camping. I stayed in one of the cabins and it proved to be warm and dry with a hot shower.
An important fact about Stony Lonesome OHV Park that will affect members of this club, is that the park is located in a Dry County in Alabama. As such, no alcohol is permitted on Stony Lonesome property, to include the camp site. Although other campers were seen with alcohol very discreetly sitting around their campfires, if someone from management catches you, it could result in your being told to leave the park immediately. Also, for those of us that have alcohol in our coolers, entry into the trail section of the park requires you to enter through a controlled access point (gate) where a gate guard will visually inspect your cooler prior to entering the park. Failure to comply with the inspection will result in not gaining entry. The gate is monitored by security cameras so the “gate keeper” has to look in your cooler and can’t just take your word for it.
As stated above, the park is located about nine miles from the highway exit. This nine miles is also where you will find the closest gas, grocery store, and fast food type restaurants. There is nothing but country outside the gates of the park. The town of Cullman, AL (located about 15 miles from the park) is the closest place to find good restaurants for dinner. So, if you are like me and don’t cook meals at the campsite, it is a long drive down very dark country roads to eat at night.
Our first day of wheeling was on Friday, 17 Jan. Our group consisted of six Jeeps and one Toyota Tacoma. None of us had ever been to the park before and somehow yours truly ended up being the trail lead for the group. Equipped with a two dollar trail map purchased from the Stony Lonesome office we headed out into the park. We were forewarned by management that it had been raining for the past few weeks and as a result the trails were muddy and slick. The park has several “main” two-way roads that serve to move you from one section of the park to another with numerous trails that branch off the main roads. We found the main roads to be more challenging than some of the “green” trails as the trails were extremely muddy, slick, rutted, and had several very deep mud holes.
Stony Lonesome offers three Jeep Badge of Honor trails; 1) Trail 404; 2) Gut Buster; and 3) Switchback to Who’s Your Daddy. Trail 404 was listed as an intermediate “blue” trail and upon entering the park, everyone in the group wanted to hit this trail first to “earn” their badge. The main access road (trail 44) proved more of a challenge than Trail 404 did. Trail 44 had a nice hill climb with a rocky ledge toward the top of the hill that none of the BGORC Jeeps would have a problem with. Two of the Jeeps with our party were running 35” AT tires, one with no lockers, which combined with the slick Alabama mud made for a challenge to get up the hill. Once at the top of the hill Trail 404 was off to the right. The trail itself was rather short and probably could have been rated as a “green” trail. The trail traversed along a ridge line and then went down the hill with a couple of small rock ledge drops that the Tacoma banged its rear bumper on. None of the Jeeps in the group had any problems with the trail.
Next, we made our way to Gut Buster (trail 17 on the Stony Lonesome map). The main trail (#508) led the way to a dead end at the Park boundary. At the end of the trail there were a series of hill climbs, all rated as “red” on the trail map. With the exception of Gut Buster, the other hill climbs looked to be made for buggy’s only. You can watch Youtube videos of Who’s Your Daddy/Donkey Punch to see a hill climb with a sheer rock face, spray painted with “Launch Pad” to see the buggys trying to scale the hill climb. We passed on even attempting. After walking up Gut Buster, it was determined over half of our group could not make the trail. The beginning of the trail was loose rock and relatively easy. About halfway up, the trail was severely rutted and washed out with about a two foot rock ledge to climb. And the top of the trail had about a four foot rock ledge to climb. A member of our group attempted the trail and about a third the way up, as he tried to climb a small rock ledge, his Jeep slid into the deep rut and slammed against the embankment causing his front axle shaft to break. It was later determined that he also severely bent his front lower control arm. After this damage, no one else was willing to attempt the climb. This climb is probably more than doable under dry conditions, but the slick Alabama mud made it impassable for the Jeeps in our group.
After the disappointment of Gut Buster, we made our way to Switch Back to Who’s Your Daddy, the third and final Jeep Badge of Honor Trail. A quick look at the trail from the entry point determined it was too much for the Jeeps in our group. Myself and one other were willing to try, but there was no easy way to get back with the rest of our group and since I was the lead and the other guy was running trail, we decided to stick with the group and move on to other trails.
The trail map provided by Stony Lonesome is somewhat deceiving. Several of the “blue” trails could have been identified as “red” due to the condition of the trails. Even if the mud wasn’t so bad, some of the trails had difficult rock ledges and hill climbs that were made more difficult by massive erosion on the trails causing very deep ruts that often had to be straddled. Trail 505, had a very difficult uphill hairpin turn that was heavily eroded that caused one of our Jeeps to damage his passenger side mirror as he slid into the rut and the mirror struck a tree. Trail 405C started off with having to straddle a huge washout and once cleared, halfway up the hill climb was a huge rock ledge that our Jeeps on 35’s and the Tacoma could not navigate. This resulted in having to turn around on the trail and then winch everyone off the trail as they all slid into the washout.
That concluded day 1 as the park closed at 6:00 pm and all vehicles had to be off the trail by then.
Saturday we awoke to rain and it rained pretty much the whole day, making the slick trails even more difficult to navigate. We decided to try the other side of the park in the morning and headed down “Mary’s Road” to access the southwest side of the park that consisted of all blue trails. Headed down “Mary’s Road” was akin to diving down the middle of a swamp. The standing water was about two to three feet deep along the route and when we finally got to the Creek crossing on trail 300 to access the southwest part of the park, there was a locked gate. The creek water level was pretty high and was fast moving so that cancelled out the southwest part of the park.
We made our way to the far other side of the park and hit trail 29 (Bootleg Creek). This was probably the best trail in the park. It was mostly rock so therefore, very little mud. It was a true blue trail that provided enough challenge to better equipped Jeeps and a couple of winch points for the lesser Jeeps. This should have been the Jeep Badge trail as it was far superior to trail 404. The end of the trail had several different levels of hill climbs to exit the trail. The easiest was to the far right which was basically a steep dirt road. The most difficult was the center trail that was a steep hill climb with a large rock ledge at the top. The furthest to the left was also a steep hill climb with a medium size rock ledge. Again, in dry conditions this would have been a fun challenge to the end of the trail, however numerous efforts to get up the muddy hillside, just to get to the rock ledges met with negative results and in the end all vehicles had to take the bypass to the right.
Trail 123 was the only “red” trail we found that was Jeep capable and did not involve a huge muddy hill climb. The trail ran along Rock Creek and gradually climbed upwards in a creek bed. Several tricky spots and the end of the trail was a steep ledge that those of us that took the trail had to winch up to get out of. The remainder of our group of less capable vehicles took Trail 414 that ran parallel to Rock Creek but even that trail was problematic, again because of the mud and erosion to the trail which could have increased the rating to a “blue” trail.
We completed one more “blue” trail, trail 406, which was a relatively easy trail with some muddy hill accents and descents. Nothing really to write home about, but did involve several water crossings that under dryer conditions would have been a pleasant little trail.
Overall, Stony Lonesome is a neat little Off-road park that offers a variety of trails. I wouldn’t mind going back in the summer months when the trails/ground are not as muddy. The trails did not appear well maintained; one trail had a large tree that fell across the trail making it impassable and causing a difficult, tight, turn around (could have used Turkey’s chain saw) and heavy erosion made several of the trails impassable. The majority of the red trails were nothing more than very steep hill climbs or mud pits that ran along the creek. The trails and terrain were similar to those at Windrock, TN, so not sure if it is worth the extra drive time for the Northern Virginia Goats, but if you are in the area, and the conditions are dry, I’m sure it would be worth a couple days of your time. As I said, I would go back in the drier summer months to check out more of the trails. Would really like to check out trail 21, Yeti Bottoms, as some of the Youtube videos of this trail make the trail look pretty cool.
Stony Lonesome website:
Trail Map of Stony Lonesome