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Slippery Rock's dirty little secret
Dunes offers place to play, regardless of age
It happens much too often.
A beautiful summer afternoon glittered with sunshine and blue skies sneaks its way into western Pennsylvania. It becomes the quintessential day for a group of friends to spend their picture perfect afternoon riding their dirt bikes, periodically slipping into tricks frequently performed by the members of their clique as they hop like bunnies over enlarged mounds of dirt.
While everything seems perfect, the group of friends can hear a jeep plowing through the wooded area where, until now, everyone had thought was an entirely separate world from the outside, hidden between gigantic trees, bushes of thorns and grass too long to ever mow. This glimpse of perfection is quickly snatched by an officer as the authority figure claims this bike-riding faction is, in some way, either disobeying unknown rules, riding on private property, or simply just annoying other individuals in surrounding areas.
The officer forces the members of this now-cult to quit what they are doing and shove away their bikes and other off-road vehicles into a garage somewhere so no one else can be bothered. And with that, a perfect July afternoon is somehow in ruin and the group of friends is now forced to wonder if they will ever be able to find a place to defy death once again.
It just happens much too often. So often that local resident John Huselton decided to take some land of his own and open Slippery Rock Dunes, a place to let that group of friends come and ride their bikes, among other things, as much as they want.
“People needed a place to play,” Huselton said. “So I decided I would develop a place for people to ride. I knew of people that were riding illegally and I wanted to start a place to give those people a place to ride legally. Really, I just like to see people having fun.”
And while the place was founded for riders to bring their bikes, Slippery Rock Dunes, which is located a mile off of the Slippery Rock exit on Interstate 79 between Dairy Queen and Slippery Rock on Baron Road, has expanded itself immensely over its four-year history. In addition to having a dirt track, Slippery Rock Dunes now also offers free mud pits, sand drag racing, a track designed solely for children, a campground for people who would like to camp near the facility, and one of the only motocross tracks on the eastern side of the country.
“They don’t have many motocross tracks in the east,” Huselton said. “They are big on the west coast, but not around here, and we have one. People have come from all around to ride on it.”
Also, Huselton has recently begun what he calls a “4X4 truck and Jeep mud show.” The show, runs every Saturday beginning at noon.
“It has been running five weeks so far,” he said. “And it is getting better each week. It really seems to be growing. People like to come out and see the cars being crushed.”
When Huselton says “people,” he really means people. In fact, it wasn’t too long ago that he had an experience on his track that he can’t soon forget.
“Recently, we had a grandfather want to come out and ride his motorcycle with his grandson,” he said. “The man was 82 years old and he hadn’t taken out his bike since he got married. He decided he would take his grandson, who was two years old, out on our track. The track that they rode on was flat, and his grandson’s bike had training wheels, so it was equipped for real young kids to ride. It was all electric too, so the kid didn’t have to do anything. But they had a lot of fun, and now we can say that we have had everybody from age two to 82 out on our track!”
So now that grandfathers, grandsons and even those groups of friends mentioned earlier have someplace to ride their bikes legally around the area, Huselton’s job is done, right? Wrong. While he may have achieved what he originally set out to do, Huselton insists that he plans to expand on the amount of things Slippery Rock Dunes has to offer.
“We have been growing,” he said. “Trails are still being made weekly. By the time we are done, we want to offer anything there is to do outside. Anything you want to do, we want you to be able to do it at Slippery Rock Dunes.”
Slippery Rock Dunes is open Wednesday through Sunday. For a schedule of events, hours of operation and everything Slippery Rock Dunes has to offer, visit http://www.slipperyrockdunes.com.
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A beautiful summer afternoon glittered with sunshine and blue skies sneaks its way into western Pennsylvania. It becomes the quintessential day for a group of friends to spend their picture perfect afternoon riding their dirt bikes, periodically slipping into tricks frequently performed by the members of their clique as they hop like bunnies over enlarged mounds of dirt. -
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