SUCCESS! Overland Expedition: S1E2 - Kalkaska, MI ORV Trail, Bra Tree, OffRoad, and Camp

We are excited to continue our Expedition East video series by posting Episode 2 of our travels. We are in Northern Michigan. We prepared for this part of our journey by downloading the Michigan ORV routes from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) website: https://midnr.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=1710727ba3ec4c64928110fdb4f7799d

We left camp on Saturday morning and headed up to Upper Lower Michigan. We camped out at the Pickerel Lake State Forest Campground (video to come), and on Sunday morning we hit the trails in our AEV ZR2 Bison. This video covers our first real trail day. We deciding to do our trail ride on the Kalkaska ORV (Offroad Vehicle Route). We got onto the trail right at County Road 612, and we headed south and then southwest toward the Manistee National Forest. We even saw a famous Bra tree where women have hung bras for Breast Cancer Awareness. This was our first experience doing some Michigan offroad trail riding and camping.

These trails are mostly multi-use offroad trails. They are used by snowmobiles in the winter, and by Jeeps, ATVs, and Side-by-Sides in the other months. The trails were not difficult or technical. They were very sandy. It reminded me of Florida. There were more elevation changes than Florida, and the scenery did change, but there were a lot of similarities. One thing to call out was the condition of the trail. They were horribly corrugated/washboarded. Most likely due to the abuse of the smaller vehicles, but it was pretty rough on the suspension and the truck itself. The AEV Bison took a lot of continual punishment. I could see the bed and topper shaking in my side mirrors looking back. Sort of scary.

All in all, it was a fund day. We did see some other vehicles on the trail, so that was cool. We were able to relax, walk around and stretch our legs as needed. The weather was prefect, and there was a lot of real cool things to see along the trail.

We hope you enjoy the video. We look forward to your comments.

If you missed Episode 1 from out visit to American Expeditionary Vehicles (AEV) see it here: https://youtu.be/BClnCB4Fozo