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- Week Riding the former Jean Pierre Chouteau Hiking Trail northeastern Oklahoma

Jay547

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Daniel, Brady (Brady is the TBT Racing suspension guy in Oklahoma), and I went for a ride along the abandoned Jean Pierre Chouteau Hiking Trail that follows the Verdigris River Navigational Channel - I’ve ridden it a few times before. Neither had ever been there but both wanted to see/ride it.

Daniel normally rides a BMW GS but you know how those are – once they’re down, they stay down a long time. This day he brought his back-up bike, a Grom. Don’t laugh, he can ride the wheels off of it. Brady rides an XR650. He is an A level enduro rider and he hauls.

We went north to the first foot bridge. Of the few remaining, this one is in the best condition.

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Of course, Daniel had to ride across.

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He’s lucky it had two hand cables running the length. This is a suspension bridge and it swings. He lost his balance and would’ve gone off the side otherwise. It’s about fifteen feet down to the bottom.

From there, we turned back and rode around the boat ramps and the old, bypassed highway section where they left a bunch of construction materials from when they built the navigational channel.

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We had to jump back on the road to get to the next access point. The last time I was here, the trail could still be accessed from the site of the never-finished nuclear power plant - damn hippies got it shut down. A large tissue mill has been recently built there. And now, it’s all locked gates.

We rode back toward the main highway along a dirt road that had been closed during the power plant construction in the late 70’s. This bridge was abandoned and left to fall apart. We weren’t looking forward to back-tracking. Brady found a way to ride through the creek and get out to the road.

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A few miles south and we were back on the trail. When I was here a few years ago, the trail was blocked by cut-down trees. Now, it’s cleaned up and clear – for the first couple miles.

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Soon we came to another foot bridge. This one is in pretty good condition. Before when I was here, there was a cat-walk type metal bridge off to the side that could be ridden across. It was gone. In its place was a couple long ramps across the creek – spaced just about the width of a s x s. It looked sketchy, so I walked across first. It seemed solid and I told Brady to go for it. It worked just fine. Daniel and I soon followed.

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We were in the middle of nowhere, so this had to do for lunch.

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After a couple more miles, we were back by the power plant site. Except now, we were on the other side of the fence all the way back by the river. This was built to be the shipping and receiving dock for the power plant.

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The last point of interest that we wanted to visit was the Rocky Point Public Use Area. This portion of the trail was overgrown and full of face slappers. Obviously, none of the side x sides had made it this far. My arms were bloodied from all the branches hanging over the trail.

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At one time, it was a nice park. Now, it’s closed and abandoned. We talked to one of the employees at the dam and he told us this story: the landowner donated the land to the Corps of Engineers on the condition that as long as he lived, it was to be used as a public park. He said five days after the landowner died, they closed it.

That's about thirty feet down to the water.

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We tried a short-cut way out. The road was closed and gated. We ended up riding back the way we came. It was a short but fun ride. I’m sure they’ll want to do it again.

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