Golden mountain park- trip pics and review

[Mattnatti]

I arrived home a few hours ago after wheeling at GMP in Tennessee with Atlanta custom creations and Lowe Toyota and wanted to share my trip and review the park as requested by Hodgie.
I have only been to 3 offroad parks ( haspin, Big rock and Dirty turtle ) before and I must say that I am very impressed with GMP. Very welcoming staff, many pavillions for rent and also plenty of areas for just camping. The pavilion ( #3 next to a very large pond ) that was rented by ACC and Lowe Toyota was very spacious with water, electric, a big webber grill along with a regular outdoor park type of grill, trash cans and very clean and stocked men's and womens bathrooms and showers just about 100' away. I think they paid around $900 for this and that included up to 20 trucks. More info can be found at their website.
The trails were marked very well and ranged from moderate, difficult and extreme along with a rock garden that they hold rock races on. The park is very well layed out and easy to navigate.

This is a park that could easily handle the CORE group and has trails for everyone with any type of truck.

I had a fantastic time with great people and was able to see and wheel with many classic Toyota Land Cruisers.
I hope that CORE can visit this park in the future as it would be enjoyed by all.

Onto the pics..........

Pavilion #3...



You can see the bath house in the upper right of pics.



This is what I woke up to every morning when I opened the hatch of my 80 and you can see a couple of the other smaller pavilions across the pond.




Some trail shots.....sorry there aren't more but...uh...hum...I was busy at the wheel on the most difficult trails my 80 and I have ever been on.









Hellivator....the giant slab on the left and the skinny, jeep axel ripping bypass on the left between the trees and overhanging rock.



Some shots from atop hellivator....





The jeep that suffered catastrophic damage. If you look closely you can see the front ps wheel still attached to the tie rod wedged tightly into the grill/ bumper ( ouch )







The rock garden. Very long way up the hill with many many different lines that all looked very difficult.










And some Toyota eye candy for those who like the good stuff. ;)

A 55 land cruiser restored by ACC. This guy travels North America in this set up year round.





A 40 built by ACC.....



And many more......





















And last but not least. A big shout out to Chris for building my sliders for me and working while under the weather to get them on before my trip. After a few attempts to get some things fabbed up Chris came through in a big way.

The sliders held up fantastic and I leaned on the pretty hard a couple of times and everyone liked them very much. A little bit of cosmetic damage to the 80 but Meh it could have been worse. They don't call Land Cruisers the worlds toughest all purpose 4 wheel drive vehicle for nothing.

[jwend]

looks like a fun place to wheel!

[Drivermod]

Thanks for taking the time to write up a report. Looks like you had beautiful weather. I love wheeling this time of year.

Ian

[twiztedzuki]

thanx for pics! hoping make it down there this year

oh man that place looks like a blast

[Hotwheels]

I have been there 2 different time. Super great place to wheel. Lots of trials and you dont have to drive far to start wheeling on them..

[Mattnatti]

Originally Posted by Hotwheels

I have been there 2 different time. Super great place to wheel. Lots of trials and you dont have to drive far to start wheeling on them..

That is a great point that I forgot about. We were less than 1000' from the trail head being at pavilion #3

This is a great spot that CORE should visit.

[Redriverranger]

Golden Mountain is an excellent park. We were there two weekends ago for a three day weekend and had a blast. It's not very big, at about a mile square, but has lot's of trails, and it's always easy to run back to camp if you need something. There is ton's of rock there, with several good high challenge trails and obstacles. We had a group of a dozen trucks and tore some stuff up.... We also stayed at pavillion #3, which is great because of the close access to the restrooms and shower house. The electric and water was also a necessary amenity for running grinders and welders. I would highly recomend it.

[bc35339]

I know noone likes to hear the word hardcore but in my opinion this place has the most hardcore wheeling that I have ever rode on for such a small area (around 500 acres) and any direction you look there is a trail that can and will break your junk. Great place to go and the best part about it is when you break your not to far from the parking lot. (not like harlan or coal creek where you could be 5 or 10 miles from anything.I broke a air shock and was stuck for several hours around 1:30 in the morning and it was 13 degrees outside and had been snowing, took 4 wenches to get it out.:)I cant wait to go back.

[itbrokeagain]

How far from cincy?

[Mattnatti]

Originally Posted by itbrokeagain

How far from cincy?

Tony, going the way google maps says it took me about 4 1/2 hrs to get home yesterday and I was taking my time. I went there and did all interstate 75s to knoxville to 40w and it took me about 6hrs and added a extra 90mi to the trip. I normally like to travel interstates as much as possible and google maps has a lot of non interstate but it was a good route. Nice drive actually.

[Mattnatti]

I wish you would have went Tony. Your 80 would have been right at home.
Brian's ( owner of ACC ) 80 was just one bad ass sooper dooper rig. So freaking cool.

[Mattnatti]

Originally Posted by Redriverranger

Golden Mountain is an excellent park. We were there two weekends ago for a three day weekend and had a blast. It's not very big, at about a mile square, but has lot's of trails, and it's always easy to run back to camp if you need something. There is ton's of rock there, with several good high challenge trails and obstacles. We had a group of a dozen trucks and tore some stuff up.... We also stayed at pavillion #3, which is great because of the close access to the restrooms and shower house. The electric and water was also a necessary amenity for running grinders and welders. I would highly recomend it.

That's a good point about the welders and grinders but the faculty there also have welders and stuff if need be that can be used.

[Tool Man]

Originally Posted by Mattnatti

That's a good point about the welders and grinders but the faculty there also have welders and stuff if need be that can be used.

this sounds like a good place to go. Thanks for the post

[boomhauer]

like redriverranger said, it was a great place to wheel to be as small as it is but be forewarned!!! it would be exceptionally easy to break even the baddest built rig within 5 minutes of hitting the trails. our group the T.O.C. (tribe of crazies) always looks for the hardest trails there are wherever we go and believe me this place has plenty of them. there is a reason this is the place they hold the dixie run at now that tellico is closed.

we went on a short run thursday after we got unloaded and camp set up and stayed on the easy and moderate trails since it was dark and trust me, some of the moderate trails were more than most people would want. this is not a gas it and go kinda place. very technical driving required or else you will find yourself in some very deep holes with 3 wheels off the ground. none of our rigs are smaller than 1 tons and 40's and there were plenty of places where we were looking for alternate routes.

there was one trail that went thru a bunch of house sized boulders somewhat like the "den" except tighter that was just plain badass and it had a ramp built onto the side of one such boulder that was quite fun to run. notice i said boulders and not rocks

[reformed]

Golden Mountain one of the best places around to wheel. Doesn't take all day to get to the fun stuff. It takes 4.5hrs to get there. I am going down there next weekend for a Rebel Ridge Runners end of year party/event.