Mid-State: Sleepy Hollow

[DCC]

Little bit of mud but ridable.

[james leikert]

05.29.06

avoid, still pretty muddy with standing water in quite a few spots.

probably another 2-4 weeks depending on weather.

[Darkside]

This trail is usually dried out & overgrown by July. Fast though, as long as you stay off the horse trails.

[kateroo15]

There's only one challenging thing about Sleepy Hollow. The tall grass cause there isn't much in the way of hills.

[Krol_Franklin_E]

Rode July 29th, trail was freshly trimmed. Fast and wide open. Couple spots they didn't mow but the weeds wern't too high. Overall very nice. This cleanup was done after the storms that went through mid week. There were no trees blocking trail.

[Scot]

Rode it Sept 22 and I had more fun than expected on that kind of trail. It appears that even when Michigan is dry this park is still soggy. Its wide, nothing like the detroit area single track trails. This is a trail of long gradual grades not the constant up and down most of us are used to. I would say it's about a 50% mowed paths through fields/short tree brush areas and 50% older forests. The whole trail is wide and not very traveled, nothing technical and only a few hills worth mentioning. In some places the field areas don't have a worn path, just a 10' wide path of mowed filed grass.

The thing I liked best was you never had a real chance to coast. even on the downhills the ground is so soft/bumpy/grassy you really can't stop if you want to keep up a decent speed. There is 1 cool feature that I can only describe as a huge pit. It drops about 30 feet down into a hole at I would guess at 50 degrees and then straight back up the other side at the same grade to end up at pretty much the same level. I stuck around this spot for a while and screwed off like a 10 year old.

Not a bad morning but I did need to stop by Brighton RA on my way home for something more challanging.

[Di_bear]

AVOID!

Three words: Lakes. Mud. Slop.

You know, this could be a really cool system (10-11 miles for US!!!) if someone could get out there and *help* the land a bit.

I did a lot of walking because most of it was mud. Not sloppy ride-through-the-puddle mud, but thick, disappearing tires mud. I believe it was right after I reached point #4, where it intersects with a horse trail, that the trail completely disappeared into a LAKE! Yeah...not walking through or around that.

Someone was riding a horse on that horribly unstable trail. I wasn't too happy about that, especially considering the horse trail I took to the staging area (I hopped off the mountain bike trail at the point near the staging area to quit my ride since I couldn't proceed through a lake), was in perfect condition.

Unfortunately, Sleepy Hollow usually has sloppy spots.

Sloppy Hollow.

[troparra]

I rode Sleepy Hollow this morning, and it's pretty dried out. There are still some wet spots, but you can ride through them.
The trail system is still about 50% mowed grass. The grass in some areas is not mowed, and is REALLY long, almost to my shoulders in some parts(in particular south of Price Road). That was fairly unpleasant.

It seems like where the sun hits, there's grass. In the forest, no grass. Overall the trail is pretty flat and wide. Not challenging, except for the long grassy areas. Some parts of the trail are nice, other parts are grassy/bumpy/slow.

I'd recommend checking yourself for ticks after riding here. I did see several deer in the grassy areas, and deer are a host animal for ticks.

[D-Ryd]

Be careful between mile marker 10 & 11 I believe. There are some awesome geniuses who thought the best way to deal with metal fenceposts in the trail was to cut them off about five inches above the ground. It ripp my tire in half and could be a horrible danger if you crashed and landed on it. If I ever feel eager enough to lose a couple pints of blood to mosquitos I will take a hammer and pound them all the way into the ground. The area is not to far past where to cross the night entreance for landing boats on the west side of the lake...

[james leikert]

yep, sleepy is wfo! some spots are still a bit moist, but the red loop is entirely passable.

i did the red loop yesterday but don't remember seeing any metal posts sticking out of the ground. are they north or south of the night entrance road? guess i'll have to pay more attention next time...

here's my (unsolicited) advice about sleepy hollow... ymmv.

- don't like tall grass - switch to road biking
- bumpy trail - shift to a harder gear
- slow - shift to a harder gear

sorry, feeling a bit sarcastic today...

here's a gps track of the red loop: http://discovermachine.com/maps/349

jim

[krishna]

I rode almost all the trails yesterday (Monday June 25). Everything had been mowed and was nicely dried out.

[dauber76]

I rode all the northern trails today (between markers 1 and 8 ) and other than a few large trees down between markers 3 and 4, all was good.

Ride recap here

[ransrider]

Rode there Saturday and the trail was in great shape . They had a half marathon and it helped the trail with all the people running on it . Wish it had not rained so much because it will take a while to dry out . One good thing is the gorge is back in play on the south side of Price . That is always a rush to go in and fly out of . Now only wish they would put a bridge back in at the five mile mark on the north side . As always this trail just needs more riders . For those of you who complain about the bumps in some spots I am almost 65 years young riding a hardtail with an old Mag 20 shock and I get along just fine . AKA Owosso Bob

[jweller007]

I went out to Sleepy Hollow this afternoon with the intention of doing a lap or 2 and made it all of a 1/4 mile before bailing. Most of the trails have 3-4 inches of standing water, and another 3-4 inches of mud in spots. Depending on the weather maybe a week or two before it dries out...?

[james leikert]

From my experience, the trail usually isn't dry until after June 1.

It's wfo in the late summer and fall... Just beware the blind corners.