Fall Color Tour (Two)

November 24th-25th 2001    Trailride organized and written by: Mark Samspson

Arkansas Trail Riding--Riders: Mark Sampson, Kenny Gibbons and Whylie "The Plumber". I had ridden some of these trails just a few weeks ago----but didn't get near enough and had to go back. So I went back with some friends and we rode some trails I had ridden and explored some more trails. The Tornado added almost a little too much excitement to the ride.

We arrived in Clarksville, Arkansas on Friday---turned on the weather channel to scope out tomorrow's riding and found out a tornado was heading right for us. So we had to protect our babies. The sign says "no smoking"---nothing about bikes !!

Horsehead Lake Tornado Damage----4 people were killed very near here during the night.

Emergency crews worked thru the night to clear the road for emergency crews to rescue the dead and injured.

This tree is on top of a travel trailer.

I can't imagine the horror the people in this campground went through !!!

We rode over several down power lines trying to get thru this road to more riding.

No fishing today !!

This trailer was lucky and only got moved around a little.

I thought we would ride around these trees and go on----but it was impossible and we had to find an alternate route.

The creeks were definitely up----but surprisingly we never came upon one we couldn't get across.

Kenny Gibbons washing his bike.

Horesehead Lake Spillway---a fireman sent me down a trail to get around the downed trees and I came across this spillway---but this trail was blocked also!!

There was a very long building out in this open field---and all of the roof is hanging in those trees in the distance.

The white house beside the tree has no roof----Looks like a tree hit this truck.

The roof is totally gone-----rafters and all !!!!

My son wants this Husky 610

Oh yeh------it's bad !!! And No---you can't ride it !!!

We did a lot of riding in the Mill Creek area----I was here earlier in the month, but we only touched on the trails. We tried to ride them all in this area. Super Bowl hill wasn't so bad--but we were going down it----this hill was about 1/4 mile long (you can't see much of it in this picture).

Near the top of "Maganzine Mountain", which I think is the highest peak in Arkansas---we ate a great steak here. A lot of bikes seem to frequent this place.

This little guy (with not to many front teeth) insisted I pull a wheelie. His mom told him to find a younger guy to pull a wheelie---well that didn't set well with me and I obliged him with a couple of small ones---only after I insisted he pull my finger---RRRrrrrrriiiiiipppppppppp. I could tell he had never pulled anybody's finger before from the look on his face. Those "Bikers" are such a bad influence !!!!

Riding down Magazine Mountain-----we caught a neat trail just down the road that took us the rest of the way down. Isn't Arkansas beautiful ?

These rock ledges were so perfect, they almost looked man-made.

Kenny and Whylie in the rocks----these guys are veteran Colorado riders--"What Rocks" ????

The weather was absolutely perfect all weekend and we are going back-----as we have only touched the trails in Northwest Arkansas.

And finally below-------I know RL wouldn't post this picture----so I did :)

The End