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A few weeks ago, I went to visit family in Louisiana and got the chance to
bring my wife’s grandpa’s Kawasaki Prairie 650 ATV. My brother drove
down also and brought his Honda Rancher ES for a little fun. I spent the first
day (Friday) riding around my two kids and visiting with relatives. I found
that this was one of the best ways to get back and forth between their
houses since they are in close proximity as well as keeping my kids
occupied.
Saturday we had my grandpa’s 80th birthday party and then boiled 150lbs of
crawfish for all the family to enjoy. It started raining right in the middle of the
feast and I thought, “Well, there goes the riding trip we had planned for
later.” My cousin Jason then informed me that it would be even better now
that it was raining because then there would be some mud! I hadn’t thought
about it before he said it but he was right. There hadn’t been rain down
there in a few weeks and everything was dry all over, but I hadn’t paid
attention to it before then. NOW our ride would be a lot better. The rain
didn’t let up and my brother had other plans for Sunday so he opted to head
out and left his Rancher for my cousin Josh to ride and for me to return
safely. That left us all with an ATV to ride.
We left out around 11pm after my kids went to sleep, and Zach led the way
on the Honda 400EX. We went down to a short but challenging stretch that
is always muddy after a rain. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Jason and Zach
went ahead of us and pulled a quick one by going around a HUGE mud hole
and then backing up right in front of it like they just went through it. Of
course, Josh didn’t do anything more than drop right into it and stop. We
weren’t 100 feet into the woods and already had one stuck ATV. I knew this
night was going to be FUN! We all had a laugh, and I pulled around to shine
some light on the situation while Jason helped Josh get clear of the mud.
We then continued around through that run and came out on the road only
to turn around and head right back in.
After a little while we decided to take a run around 5 Mile slough (which is
incidentally the name of my cousin Josh's band). We had to take the long
way around because the culvert washed away where we normally went
across, but that just made for a better ride. This stretch was a lot longer
than the first and had more variations of mud/hills than the first. Zach got
very far ahead of the rest of us and we lost our way in some dense woods. I
ended up last in the pack and didn’t get a good run at the very steep
transition from muddy woods to open field and had to take several runs at it
while Zach and Jason caught the front rack and pulled me up. I should point
out that I swapped ATV’s with Jason and Heather because I was alone riding
and they were riding together and I had the biggest and most powerful ATV
NO WAY would I have gotten stuck on the 650! Now it was Zach’s turn to get
stuck! Jason immediately followed suit right after Zach because he thought
the 650 was too much for that pass of mud…WRONG! Getting that beast
out was not an easy task. Heather had to dismount and Jason had to lock
the differential and back up far enough for me to pull him sideways onto
solid ground. After we went as far as we could we decided to turn around
and go right back through the same way we just came. Once we came back
out onto the main road we decided to head to the rock pile (where this sites
name came from ironically). Getting to the rock pile is not just a simple little
trip. You really need ATV’s with plenty of power or at least 4 wheel drive.
Brakes, as we later found out, are almost a must on the steep and slick
terrain. We were negating a very steep double climb. Zach was in the lead,
followed by Jason. I went next and had a bit of trouble. My ATV had very
heavy duty mud grip tires on it and barely made it up the 2nd step of the
climb because after you made the 1st step you had to turn left and that
caused you to lose momentum. As soon as I got to the top I told Jason that I
didn’t think Josh would make it. He had a little more powerful ATV but the
tires were stock. Sure enough his lights approached and immediately
disappeared. Then his headlight went out. We though the worst because
this was a very steep hill and we couldn’t even see down it to know if he had
flipped or not. Luckily his ATV had good brakes and he managed to ride it
out all the way back down. Jason then rode up the hill for him and we all
took back off again. We didn’t have any trouble after this and we all got
back into the rhythm of riding ATV’s. A lot of fun can be had riding with
friends and family. That ride brought back memories for me. We all used to
ride that stretch when we were younger and I haven’t been back there in 5
or 6 years. Josh had bought a bunch of lottery tickets and said to me mid-
ride “You know, even if I had won that 200 million dollars I can’t think of
anything I would rather be doing than this. Even if I was a millionaire I would
still love to do stuff like this just as much as I do now.” I agree. There is
nothing like the freedom of riding ATV’s into places you would never see
otherwise. You feel detached from everything that gives you grief and you
just ride.
Robert Neal Tyson
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