I went to Laurens in South Carolina to the new Gulches ORV park with a former co-worker and his Church's Jeep club. I will say the trails were challenging at the "easy" levels, but I was very disappointed as the trails were also very confusing. You may have 4 trails wind in the same path and the only way to know if you are going in the wrong direction is a little WW sign meaning "wrong way." The maps you are given at the entrance is basically a kiddie drawing and still hard to follow on the trail while trying to traverse it. No doubt there were some hardcore challenges for more advanced rigs both for mudders, rock crawlers, and hill climbers. I stayed on the "easy" trails and if it were raning or wet on the trails then I would most definitely have had a much harder time even with 4wd.
They were also holding a few competitions, unfortunately I only attended the "Ravine Competition." It was really neat. They had some deep ravines and the first group was Class A. Meaning tires smaller than 34" and no lockers front or rear, not even factory lockers were allowed in this group. The shorter wheel based vehicles did find, but only one Jeep Cherokee made it through. I was disappointed the 2 Toyota's that were in it did not get further than the first hill. There was quite an interesting show however; a girl and her father as the spotter tried to go down the trail backwards and she loses all traction at the top of the first hill. Her spotter tried to rock her with a ski rope when the rope broke. The spotter fell smack dab on the middle of his back to a stump on the ground! The crowd all ooohhed and stayed silent for a few minutes. I didn't get to stay longer than that as my father and I had enough and we headed home. I have picutres on my fiancee's digicam, but cannot figure out how to get the USB cable in it. As soon as I do then pics will be up.

BTW the only damage report I have is a left auxillary back up lamp was completly torn off from a drop off, but I needed another pair anyways

 

hey man, lets see some pics of the this place.

 

I'm interested to see what it looks like too since its not too bad of a drive for me. Did you get to see any of the difficult trails or only hear about them?

 

difficult trails are similar to River Rock, but shorter, its a smaller park in comparison, muddy on the backside, the hard trails run between the loop. narrow as well