Mountain Bike Review: Snowhill/Little Big Econ State Park

Little Big Econ State Park / Snowhill Road

 Oviedo, Florida

This is a rough-draft post. I saw pictures of our experience and wanted to throw something down before I forgot...again.

I'll start my review with this picture that I took with my phone:

 

From my FaceBook post, October 29th, 2012:

Von Maxey Story Time! Yesterday, we had a mountain biking experience of a lifetime...one we don't want to relive. We wanted to try a different trail and went to a trail park near Oviedo, hoping to ride along the Econ River. 

We had heard beforehand that the trails were very poorly marked, so we made sure to have maps, a compass, and April's GPS trail equipped phone. Unfortunately, not only were the trails not marked at all, the map that is available at the entrance was totally unreliable with some trails listed and others missing from the map but clearly on the course. We rode for a while, hoping for some fun climbs and drops and after a haul, finally found only a few. We decided to take one more trail before heading back to our car and headed on the path. The trail wasn't easy to follow as wild hogs had torn up the earth hunting for grubs and there were paths that forked. 

After riding the one trail for over 30 minutes, we realized we were riding in a circle, but managed to come out to a service road, or so we thought. We consulted the GPS, knew the direction to head, and followed the service road...only to have the road U-turn in the opposite direction. We rode through mud and standing water, with deer jumping out on the trail in front of us, and wild boar squealing in the brush about 10 feet away....only to realize we weren't on a service road...it was hunting tract and we had been going around a two mile circle.We realized we only had about 45 minutes of light left, 15% cell phone battery left, and temps dropping, Kevin decided it was time to call for help. After spending 20 minutes on the phone with a dispatcher who had sent out deputies to run their sirens around the trails for us to hear and locate us (no luck), a boar hiding in the shrubs clicking its teeth, and a rattle snake in brush about 8 feet away (we placed our bikes around us like a fence), we finally heard the thundering of a helicopter from the northwest. After another 20 minutes of the deputies in the chopper figuring out how to get to us (we were in barb wired property with no vehicle access), one finally walked over to us (after the helicopter relaunched and hovered over us to guide him). 

We had to walk about half a mile to the chopper where a road deputy met on foot. He walked us back over another mile and a half over more hunting property that backed up to the trails and to his vehicle. He helped us load the bikes on top of his vehicle and we climbed in his cruiser...April offered to ride in the back. We had never been so happy to get an officer's car... While walking, we asked where we went wrong, what choice we should have made instead, and if we had done everything correctly survival/search and rescue-wise. He told us that we hadn't done anything wrong and this happens almost weekly...that we were the farthest ones out that he knew of, but because the trails are so poorly labeled and the map so unreliable, people got lost all the time. All in all, we ended up about some nine miles away from our car at the trailhead. The deputies were incredibly helpful and kind, and we appreciated their help more than we can say. So, officers, we thank you for helping us get home...

 So, yeah. True story. One that I don't want to relive again and I wouldn't go back to this park if someone offered to guide me. I was truly traumatized and still get chills when we pass by an area of vast land.

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By the way, this happened the very next day:

FaceBook post, October 30th, 2012:

You know God has a sense of humor and is poking fun at you when at the LCEA Union Rep meeting tonight a sponsor held a raffle. I won a wilderness survival kit, including compass,flashlight, binoculars, a whistle, and Swiss Army style knife. What's funny is that as soon as he described it, I honestly knew it was coming my way. While I don't see this fitting on the mountain bikes, this will definitely go into the kayak bag! All it needs is a helicopter boarding pass and we'll be complete!  

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Pictures from Kevin's previous ride: