Lake Somerville, TX - OHV Riding Area

Is this riding are very good? It looks like about 2 sq miles.
Any other input? The STTA over view:

What to Expect:
Maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers, Somerville Lake offers an off-road vehicle area for visitor recreation. The entrance and parking lot are located between the park entrance and the gate house at Yegua Creek Park. There are no restroom facilities in this undeveloped and highly eroded area. Visitors are allowed to ride anywhere within the confines of the area. The Off-Road Vehicle Area is open year-round and no permit is required. Only motorcycles and 3 and 4 wheel all-terrain vehicles are allowed. Vehicle size is limited by the width of openings in the pipe rail fence at the entrance to the trail. Visitors must stay within the designated off-road vehicle area. There is no camping in the off-road vehicle area. The area is open from dawn until dusk. All vehicles must be parked in the designated parking lot. There is no parking along the roadway. All Federal, State, and local laws apply.

I rode there back in 1979 or 1980. It was fun on a friend's 185cc suzuki enduro. That is until a girl I was teaching to ride the bike rode it into the lake and dropped it totally under water.

It was probably for the best. By then everyone had consumed too much alcohol to be riding anyway. Especially the owner. When we picked his bike up out of the water and pretended to be washing it, he thanked us...

When are we going?

Last time I was there a couple of years ago it was over run with drunk aggies on kwads. The place was pretty torn up from the kwads.

Hemibee said:

Last time I was there a couple of years ago it was over run with drunk aggies on kwads. The place was pretty torn up from the kwads.

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That makes sense. Why ride something that takes a little skill when you can ride a 4 wheeler that you don't even have to balance. Actually, you can't balance it. It leans with the terrafirma.

Similar thing happened years ago. Why learn to sail a catamaran when you can get on a personal water craft and just pull the throttle trigger and go...

Not a bad place.While it has an easy outer loop,some is technical.More trails than you think.

Small and floods in wet weather.

Good stuff=Free-pretty countryside-and you get to watch the "other guys".

TRH used to put on hare scrambles there in the 80's , with permission from the Core of Engineers . At least once during each event some red neck local would decide that was the day to take his dune buggy for a spin on the trails . The area was already small , we had to use all of it for an event . I was involved with an event when I noticed some construction work thru the center of the property . I called the CofE to see if it would effect our upcoming event , They assured me everything was fine dont worry about it they would be out of there by the weekend . The weekend of the event we show up saturday to finish marking trails to find them streching a fence accross the property cutting it in half , They worked till midnight that nite to finish it . It was a scrambles allright trying to remark trails to run an event for the hundred or so riders showing up sunday morning . I know the fence guys were there till midnight because we were still working trails then . One other thing about the area , it is the trash dump for the CofE . It is a nice trials riding area as long as they cant get a dumptruck close to the sections where you want to ride . SEYA

I've been there on an ATV. It's gets muddy when it rains. It has some High creek/rocky areas in the middle. I had a friend flip his atv end over end there going down a rock embankment. The outer loop would be good for bikes. the inner stuff gets pretty nasty.

Diz de place?

Desert Skies said:

Diz de place?

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That be it.

I need to ride up there and check it out. As soon as I get a license plate on the "Great Pumpkin".

I've ridden there a few times. My opinion is that its better for kids and quads. I got bored pretty quick. The SHNF is much better.

I took my son up to Somerville many years ago. I had a KX250 and he had a XR80. It was a weekday so we had the place almost all to ourselves. There was one other guy there who also had a KX250 like mine. We both came around a blind curve in the outer loop. However, we were going in opposite directions. We hit head-on at about 40 MPH. I still have the scar from that one.

Steve