Paragon Adventure Park

Located in Hazleton PA, Paragon is fast becoming one of the best, well known ORV parks in the east.  Every year that we return to Paragon, the trails are better, and increasingly challenging as the park expands its trails and builds a more permanent presence.

A small group of us decided to take a day and put together a small group of vehicles to take a self guide tour of the park and go where we wanted to go, do what we wanted to do, without the pressures of following a larger group.  Paragon's rules require a minimum of 3 vehicles to tour the park without a hired guide.  They actually say that Paragon Adventure Park can no longer allow groups to roam free without a trained trail guide, however they allow this "rule" to be bent by require at least one member of the group who is considered the group leader to watch a short video that details safety, guide training, covers the basic trail system, gives basic guide skills and safety protocols.  It's actually quite interesting and can be very helpful for beginners in understanding offroad driving techniques and recovery.  All participants are required to sign a liability waiver for legal purposes and there is a new minor (under age 18) rule requiring all minors to bring a notarized waiver with them when they arrive to the park.  Be aware that there is no exception to this rule.  A notarized waiver is needed even if the parent/legal guardian accompanies the minor. So if you arrive at the park with minors in tow and you don't have a notarized waiver with you, you won't be admitted to the park.

If you are someone who has been to Paragon and has returned year after year, your probably aware of the rules and regulations of the park.  For more info check out their web site www.paragonap.com 

The Following pages are from our chilly, over-cast spring day trip to Paragon.  The group of three in our Jeeps, two Jeep CJ-7s and a CJ-5 all played hooky on a Friday and hit the trails for a little Rock Crawling and trail riding through Paragons off-road park.

This report is still being put together but in the meantime, enjoy the pictures from this day of offroading!

   
Onto the trails...

Our day trip on the trails started off with a short side trail called Foundations, named after several very old stone foundations of structures built long ago that you'll find throughout this trail. Foundations is a trail that rates at a Green 2 and is easy enough for stock vehicles to navigate.  Back up onto the main access road and across Staging Area 1, we headed towards Whompum.

Whompum, a Blue 3 on the Paragon 1-5 rating chart, offered a nice initial rock face drop off that might get a short wheelbase a little nervous but its not a problem if you drop it in low range and stay off the brakes.  Apparently someone had recently broke something containing gear oil, either on the way up or on the way down as you can see by the solid streak of fluid running down the rock face.  Luckily it wasn't any of us.

Once down in this basin, you have a few ways to get out.  The way you came or several of the other steep hill climbs out.  We chose to hang a left at the bottom and up a heavily used rocky trail.