Limerick Forest South

The Equipment:
2006 Yamaha Banshee SE
2005 Yamaha Wolverine
2005 Yamaha Grizzly SE

The Location:
Limerick Forest

The Hosts:
None.

Skill Level:
Beginner.

The Trail:
The day was beautiful and sunny, and we where set to go. We ate a big breakfast and where ready to hit the road. A quick precheck of the ATVs lead to us finding mechanical problems with our Raptor 660.

Needless to say, an 8:30AM departure quickly turned into a 10:30AM departure. Nevertheless we hit the road laughing, joking and filled with excitement about riding a new location - Limerick Forest.

I had visited Limerick Forest once before, but ridden in the North end. The trip was fairly dissapointing as we only found dirt bike trails and they where very tight. We launched from here (<http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=44.853739,-75.625763&spn=0.011454,0.027809&t=h&z=16&msid=112301201184267661740.000454d138560a46a56ae>) Given the size of Limerick Forest we always assumed that we launched from the wrong spot. So on this trip, we launched in the South end of the forest at this location (http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&ll=44.837156,-75.623059&spn=0.011458,0.027809&t=h&z=16&msid=112301201184267661740.000454d13e108f099f311) on recommendation from the Forestry Manager, Geoff McVey. Here is a map of the trails in Limerick Forest South.

Upon entering the Forest we drove down the a fairly long backroad that is named "Forsythe Rd" according the road sign, but according to some maps this road is actually called "Limerick Rd.". In any case, we drove down one or both of these roads depending on how you look at it. It's a great entrance into the forest. A long backroad with no homes, no signs, no power lines, no nothing. After 5-10 minutes we found the "Gravel Pit" where you can park and launch from.



There where some other dirt bikes & ATVs ripping around when we arrived. We saw this as a good sign. As we where unloading the ATVs one of the guys ripping around on a dirt bike launched off of a gravel pile and did a face plant into the ground. He didn't get up. We ran over to help as the man was not moving. Once we got there, he started to move and said that he was "alright". Shut his bike off, grabbed him some water and made sure he was o.k. We then continued unloading our bikes, powering up the VholdR (which stopped working again) and
started out on the trails.

The trails where beautiful - running through sandy trails with tall pine trees, with hills in some locations, but unfortunately, we road all the trails (all the trails on the map) in under one hour and at no point where we ever more then a few kilometers from the launch point. We where absolutely astonished. This was such a tease. We had come all this way and tasted some really nice trails that essentially did a small loop around the gravel pit where we launched. There is a pit to the east, but this is clearly marked with a no tresspassing sign & didn't look very exciting any way. We found some other ATV'ers and asked them if they knew if there where any other trails. They where as dumbfounded as we where. They did mention that they had taken a trail that continues South of the end of "Forty Acre Trail" and then crosses the 21 highway and carries on for approx 20 minutes, but comes to a water crossing, so they where forced to turn around. we had taken this as well, but turned around at highway 21. After speaking with these
guys we loaded the bikes and left.

On the way back home, we stopped in North Augusta at Franks Pizza. We spoke with Frank, the owner, and he seemed to think that there was an incredible amount of trails in Limerick and spoke about a big sand hill that was in there. I can now say though that I have ridden North & South Limerick and although the trails in the South where nice, they where extremely short and never went anywhere.