New Colony - Orange Road

Slow moving trail, rocky. low range gear used frequently. Few moderate step up climbs. Trail could be pretty muddy after rain or wet seasons. Oh and we got snow flurrys!

Very dry. Small puddles of water, but otherwise no mud or anything of that sort. Definitely need a high clearance vehicle in some areas. Mostly filled with smallish boulders and a few dips here and there. There are a few good spots to stop in the beginning of it where that pond is. Otherwise it gets pretty tight. Definitely no way to back up

The trail was very dry when we ran it from the north side southward. It is basically an uphill climb for most of the route. I would rate the trail as a 4 if it is dry and there ahs not been rain for a while. If it is wet and muddy, it could easily be a 6 or 7. Others have comments about the drainage ditches and berms, and there were definitely countless of these throughout the trail. I had 35s and 2.5" list and did not scrape, but this trail really does require big approach and departure angles. If you don't have those, you will scrape.

Continuous grade most of the trail. Larger water bars. Deep ruts on the up hill faces. Deep, silty soft surfaces in many places resulting in poor traction.

I found this trail barely passable for our lightly-modified Gladiator Rubucon from Orange to Groton, generally downhill, but I would definitely NOT want to run it the other direction. The biggest obstacles were dozens of old waterbars that had eroded into large swales and berms, the worst of which were very steep, three to four feet high, followed by some deep muddy ruts. This run is better suited for a smaller, shorter wheelbase, lifted 4x4 that is less likely to high-center. Good experience with a few added boulder crawls, but its unlikely I'll run it again. No pinstriping, and that great sigh of relief when you know 'out of the woods!'

Fun rewarding ride with nice views. A couple of sections were muddy two days after rain and required some momentum have to spin tires excessively when going uphill. Ran the trail east to west.