A review of Redbird SRA in Dugger, IN 8/2011

[HumminNBoatin]

This weekend I attended the Hi-lift trail customer appreication day with NoMods "Nick" . I was driving the H1 and Nick was driving his Tacoma.

I wanted to give you all a heads up on this park.

The commute:
Flat out is terrible. The only straight line there is US 50 pretty much the whole way. The speed limit vaires from 60mph to 23mph. More than 50% of road way is 2 lane country road that does allow for passing but only if you are driving a sports car or something that you feel completely confident quick passing manuevers in. Friday night we drove to Bedford Indiana to get a room. Bedford, IN is roughly 100 miles from Lawrencburg. It took us 2:45 to go only 100 miles! The total trip to the park via US 50 is 150 Miles from Lawrenceburg. Google roughly 3 hours for this trip. You really need closer to 4 hours.

The alternate route is to take the interstate to Terre Haute. This will still take you 4 hours to get there but at least you are not stuck behind slow moving traffic.

The Town:
Dugger is a small town. There is only 1 Gas station in all of the town that carries Diesel Fuel! There is no lodging in this town. You really are better off staying in Terre Haut. Terre Haut is about at 45 minute commute from the park.

The Park:

Parking lot is nice. It's a large lot with plenty of room for trailer parking.

On the surface the trails apear to be very well marked. However once you get onto the trial system you will find arrows pointing every direction possible with no nubmers at intersections to keep you on track. Many trails at the park have not yet been placed on the map that the park gives you. Over all I would have to give the trail marking system a grade of "D".

The terrian is mostly made of clay, very much like Haspin. It was try so the dust was extreme. The over all landscape is rolling hills however due to the fact this is an old strip mine it does have some VERY steep and short climbs. The terrain itself is not terribly difficult. However if there is any amount of rain at all in this park I guarantee its going to be completely sloppy and body damage is eminent. Also the trails are dissapointing not cut correctly. Jeeps will have a hard time navigating the trails to due trees not beeing cut. Any vehicle larger than a Jeep is truly usless to take this park. Even Toyota Tacomas and an H3 HUMMER was far to wide or long to navigate the trails due to the trees. Stock Jeeps were taking body damage. If you have a full tubed out rig with axels that are not wider than that of a stock wrangler (or could care less about body damage) this could be the park for you. There were many Truggies at this event with huge Dana 60's etc... You saw these guys doing the big hill climbs but you did not really see them on the trials that much.

On a quad or UTV this park would be alot of fun.

Overview:
If you are willing to drive 4 hours to go offroading do not waste your time with this park. You are far better off going to Windrock, Black Mountain, Royal Blue etc..... In fact local parks to Cincinnati (Big Rock, Bills 491, Haspin etc...) are far more a better use of your time and way more enjoyable than Redbird, Yes Haspin is even better than Redbird.

Overall I would say that I will NEVER return to Redbird it's not worth it at all!

I hope this helps you guys if you ever consider going to Redbird SRA.