When it comes to off-road trails, lately doom and gloom is too often the tone. News headlines often preface just another story about the latest closure to a riding spot. But today the winds have changed and the clouds have parted for off-roaders to reveal a new off-road wonderland in southeast Kentucky. The area is called Mine Made Paradise Adventure Park, and it will span 63,000 acres of space once the final stage is completed in 2011 and will offer over 300 miles of trails for motorcycles, ATVs and side-by-sides.

This new trail system is built on reclaimed land once used for coal mining, as two major coal companies own the majority of the land but are allowing its development for use as an off-road park. It is modeled after the Hatfield-McCoy riding area in West Virginia, which is arguably the premiere off-road park on the East Coast. In fact, part of the same team that helped build the Hatfiled-McCoy trails is developing the areas at Mine Made Paradise Park in Knott County, Kentucky.

What’s most unique about this trail system is that the local community is actually supportive of the idea. Later this year, the park will have a “soft” opening where about 43,000 of the total 63,000 acres will be open to the general public. The park design is unique in that it will offer trails to accommodate both the hiking/mountain biking/equestrian crowd and ATV/dirt bike/side-by-side crowd, and both groups will have their own set of trails for the safety of all parties.

Kawasaki was on top of the development of this new trail system and was given the opportunity to host a ride event at Mine Made Paradise Adventure Park to check out the new trails and give the media some seat time on its ATVs and side-by-sides.

“Kawasaki has always been interested in seeing new ride spots around the country,” said Russ Brenan, public relations supervisor for Kawasaki. “It’s a good way to showcase the sport itself, and it’s a good opportunity to showcase our product. We try to do about two to three events like this a year.”

We flew into Lexington, Kentucky, for the event and drove out to Hazard, Kentucky, for our stay – remember the “Dukes of Hazzard”? The Mine Made Paradise Park is about a 30-minute drive from Hazard in nearby Knott County. We we’re also told the area is about 90 miles (by road) from one of the Hatfield-McCoy trail systems in West Virginia, though we didn’t get a chance to verify the mileage first hand.

Our ride was led by trail developer Bill Reed, who was one of the original designers of the Hatfield-McCoy trail system and will work to develop trails at Mine Made Paradise Park until its full completion in spring of 2011. Reed, along with lead technician Chuck Scott, live on site during the week as they work on the trails.

Once completed, the Mine Made Paradise Park will feature signs and markings in the same basic fashion as the Hatfield-McCoy trails. Trail difficulty will be denoted by color: green, blue, black (and double black). As Reed told us during the event, the goal is to have enthusiasts purchase one annual permit (which should cost roughly $35) that will give them access to the trail systems in Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.

It may be a little surprising to some, but the local politicians have actually been helping to push this project forward and promote the park, as they are sharp enough to recognize the financial benefits to the local community. The trail system also can help drum up some positive PR to break down the negative reputation that coal mine land is essentially worthless once the coal companies are done with it.

The local community isn’t just trying to capitalize on the tourist attraction of Mine Made Paradise Adventure Park – they are doing it right. There is an ATV, dirt bike and street bike school called the Knott County ATV & Motorcycle Riding Training Center. The center provides closed-course training, a skills practice course to sharpen up on a few skills before hitting the trails, and access to beginning and intermediate trails accessible from the training center (check out http://www.kctrc.com/ for more info).

When it came time for us to check out the trails, Kawasaki provided us with a good selection of vehicles to ride that included the all-new 2010 Mule 610 4x4 XC, the four-seater Mule 4010 Trans 4x4 Diesel, Teryx 750 FI 4x4 Sport and LE models, as well as the full line of Brute Force ATVs.

2010 Kawasaki Mule 610 4x4: Getting an excuse to go ride on some newly developed trails in Kentucky was all the motivation we needed to head East, but Kawasaki also brought along its newest side-by-side – the Mule 610 4x4. This new Mule is designed to be a sturdy work vehicle that can also have fun on the trails. It features a wider track but still fits in the bed of a pickup truck. It features new Maxxis 26-inch Bighorn tires, 1.5 inches more of ground clearance, new skid plates for trail protection and more. For more information, check out this video of the new Kawasaki Mule.

Our morning ride took us on a nice 20-mile loop that featured a great variety of different terrain. The weather was sunny and warm in the lows 80s – pretty warm for this time of year in Kentucky. We shot out of camp on some graded dirt-gravel roads until we reached the trails. There were moderate hill climbs and declines over dirt, mud, gravel and rock. We rode trails with plenty of breathing room that allowed us to rev up the motor a bit, wet and muddy sections with rocky slopes, and tighter trails that took us directly through the forest. We crossed shallow creeks, powered up some beautiful leaf-strewn hills, and even managed to plow through some decent-sized mud holes. The morning ride wasn’t extremely difficult, but it still had plenty of sections that our experienced riding group was dying to try again. The trail’s beauty definitely lay in its diversity.

We took a break to grab some lunch and clean the mud and dirt off our faces before heading out to tackle a more technical section of trail. We left behind the larger four-seater Mule 4010 for this ride simply because a few sections were just too tight for it to fit.  

After spending some of the morning taking care of photo opportunities, the afternoon ride was a little more wide open with fewer stops. We explored another 18 or so miles of trail and were reminded what a treat it was to be led by Reed, who knows these trails like the back of his hand. We tackled more tree-lined trails, some covered with leaves and others looking more like barely touched grassy mounds. We spent a lot more time on the throttle in the afternoon ride.

The highlight of the day was definitely in the afternoon when about halfway through our afternoon ride we got onto a very tight and technical tree-lined section that offered only inches of clearance in some spots. It put a smile on just about everyone’s face – dirt-filled smiles. It was amazing to find such diversity of trails in only 40 or so miles of riding. Considering there will be more than 300 miles (possibly as much as 400) of trail once Mine Made Paradise is complete, we really only scratched the surface of its potential.

For more information about the Mine Made Paradise Park, log onto KnottCountyAdventure.com. For more information on Kawasaki’s lineup of ATVs, side-by-sides and UTVs, log onto Kawasaki.com.