Blue Jay OHV

[96XSport]

Blue Jay, CA (San Jaun Capistrano)

Today, Saturday 9-20-03 a friend and I drove out to Blue Jay OHV in our Explorer Sports. We had a great time. Blue Jay is located in about the middle of Ortega Highway, the 74. Off of Ortega we made a right hand turn at the sign marked, "Blue Jay OHV". After the right turn we made our terk along a 10 mile roughly paved road, over looking Lake Elsinore. When we reached the OHV park there were many motorcycles out and about, but there are so many trails they won't get in the way, we never encounted any.
We headed up the first trail we spotted, none of the trails have names nor are they marked on skill level or difficulty. We made our accent. We got to the top of the incline and spotted some more trails. It was a good "look out" point where you can find a trail to suit your needs. Almost all the trails lead back to the entrance or "the dirt clearing". Blue Jay has a some what "soft/dust" soil. Its a clay-like dust, but I had no trouble climbing with 2WD. A couple of 4 wheelers watched from below as I climbed and were shocked to find out it was I was running 2WD, goes to show ya that all you 2WD guys can do some damage on the trail also! There were a couple of spots where I was slipping and sliding around, but nothing crazy. At some points on the trail there were big rutts, which can sometimes cause problems.
It was a lot of fun. I recommend it to anyone in the area. If you are more than an hour or two away its not really worth it, but it did please the 4 wheel abition inside.
I hope this thread is useful to all.

-Jeff

 

[RangerX]

Nice report, Jeff. Is Blue Jay OHV near Wildomar OHV? Or did they change the name? The location sounds the same...

 

[96XSport]

I am not sure. What I do know is that no one really knows the "true" name of the OHV area. I believe "Blue Jay" is the campground in that area. But the OHV area has always been refered to as "Blue Jay", to me. I will look into it further and get back to you. -Jeff

 

[GIJOE]

I think you are talking about Wildomar OHV.

 

[96XSport]

That's it! I found out today that the OHV, Wildomar (thanks GIJOE) is the right hand turn off ortega, heading towards Elsinore from San Juan. The left turn is Blue Jay Camp Grounds.

 

[96XSport]

Its hard to find a OHV that doesn't have any signs. Oh well.

 

[GIJOE]

There are a few OHV places off I-15 on your way to Las Vegas. You might want to check out some of them.

 

[Josh S.]

Hmmm, funny you mention this, my friend and I were over in that area on Monday afternoon. We ran trail 3S04 from Ortega Highway all the way to Corona. This is otherwise known as the Main Divide Road. This took all afternoon and it got dark before we made it the whole way, but we had a lotta fun. This trip was worth it because of the incredible views of both lake Elsinore and the Pacific Ocean. It was quite cool seeing Catalina surrounded in a sea of clouds from way up high on the mountain.

We hit some nice trails on the way, and got to test out our flex and clearance. There are definitely some more hardcore trails out there that might be better for solid axled rigs with a lot of articulation, and definitely some stuff you can choose to do that requires lockers, because of loose rocky soil. Sorry, no pics, and sorry that I didn't let anyone know, but we kind of decided to go about an hour before we actually did go. We were originally going to head up through Santiago Canyon, but the gate down there is STILL closed due to that endangered frog mating season thing. The gate in the Canyon (which is about 5 miles past Blackstar) is tentatively scheduled to reopen Oct. 1, which be barely missed, so next week everything should be accessible and back to normal. No mud this time, only a helluva lotta freakin dust! *cough cough*

 

[GIJOE]

That trail is a lot of fun.
I cant wait until Silverado Canyon opens back up.
I want to go offroading again it has been like 6 months since I last went offroading.

 

[96XSport]

Ya Silverado Canyon opens on Tuesday, the 30th. I can't wait to check it out!

There is a pretty intense OHV off of Rasor rd. right out of Barstow. I believe the name is "Rasor Road OHV". I am not sure on that name though.

Now that I look back on our journey on Ortega there were awesome views. Unfortunatly, my digital camera loves to break when I need it most.

Thanks for your input on your trip, Josh!

-Josh

Haha. You wanna talk about dust... Oh man out at Blue Jay, that clay-dust stuff gets EVERYWHERE. My buddy behind me had to wait a couple of minutes before he could start climbing cause it was so dusty.

We should make a little trip out to Silverado Canyon this weekend. I am dying to drive it. Let me know. Josh, I know... I miss the mudd too.

 

[Josh S.]

Yah dude, lemme know when you're going out there, just send me an email or call me (714)227-9551. Those hills get muddy as hell!! We usually go up through the Corona side, and we've been up there at times where the mud is freakin crazy! My 33 MTs were beaten down by this mud like I was on oily racing slicks. My friend got his Montero stuck up there one night...we worked on it for 3 hours that night till midnight, and then had to ditch it to come back later. The mud was so thick and nasty it was crazy. The next afternoon, we came back and worked for 9 hours straight, replacing the battery, trying to fix the 4wd, etc. We finally got it out using my rig and a buddies 4x4 4runner on 32 BFG ATs. Soo, total of 12 hours to get that POS outta the goop. Good times.

 

[96XSport]

Ya... We have had our fun in the mud. We took my friends 2WD Sport out to an old strawberry field after a 3 day rain. The results were ugly. We spent 2 hours digging and pushing. We would dig, push and gain about 6 feet with every push. It was about 200 yards to a dry grass clearing where we could get traction. The area we were driving in was also private property. So we were pretty scared about getting a ticket. Here are so pictures of fun in the mud.

This a picture of a trail we found in trabuco canyon that leads up a cliff edge to a burt out mansion, AKA Halls Mansion. This the part of the trail that is "MISSING" that road gets worst everytime we drive it.

 

[Josh S.]

Dang dude! Those are some really cool pics! You gotta show me the trails out there ok? Looks like you guys had a blast