Live Report from TrailFest 2010!

The Legendary JD Charles of the Logan Banner is at TrailFest 2010 this week, and will be filing periodic reports from the event for the McBlog:

This year's official theme for TrailFest is the 10th Anniversary of the Hatfield-McCoy Trails.

However, it very well could have been called "The Hatfield-McCoy Trails Family Reunion" or Homecoming!

For 51 weeks of the year, the Southern West Virginia town of Gilbert is your typical friendly small, rural town. But during TrailFest, it becomes the ATV capital of the state for a week of fun and family adventure. There was a visible excitement in the air on Thursday when theHatfield-McCoy Trails began its tenth anniversary celebration in Gilbert with the annual TrailFest event. Everywhere you looked riders were checking into lodges and campgrounds and visiting old friends at area restaurants and businesses, because during TrailFest the extended Hatfield-McCoy Family basically has a reunion.

Hatfield-McCoy is pretty unique in many ways, and not just because of the world famous trail system. Most of the people working at the Hatfield-McCoy Trails have been there awhile, and they are basically like family. And others, such as customer service reps, hotel, motel and lodge operators and even area businesses are a part of that extended family — and so are the riders!

This becomes evident when you try to find somebody in town for their first TrailFest. Around 200 or more people showed up on Wednesday night to get an early start on TrailFest which kicked off officially on Thursday. Many had been there before and were happy to be back. Even more people came pouring in on Thursday.

The campgrounds were busy with families setting up and going back and forth to different events, having fun at the mud pit, or the dragstrip or the different vendor set ups. Many of them were tickled to be winning cash and prizes, including 2011 Trail passes. At one time, trail riding was considered to be mostly a "guy thing" but Hatfield-McCoy is popular with the entire family and it's more common now to see families coming in to ride together. Inside the Harless Center at Gilbert the Perry family from Asheville, North Carolina was getting registered for their fourth trip to Hatfield-McCoy Country. Carrie Perry said they came to TrailFest because it was fun and that there was plenty of healthy outdoor exercise for herself, her husband Brian and their two sons Jared and Kyle to enjoy.

"When we moved to North Carolina from Florida, we started a scuba diving business," she said. "We also got interested in four wheeling on our property."

The Perry family saw the Hatfield-McCoy Trails on Fisher's ATV World and decided to come to the Mountain State and give it a try and got hooked.

"We were at TrailFest two years ago, and we have been to two different Dirt Days," Brian Perry said. "We will definitely be comingback again next year."

"It's really family fun, "said Carrie.

Youthful Emily Wilson from Gettysburg Pennsylvania agreed. The lovely young lady rode her Polaris Scrambler up to the Harless Center and was waiting for the rest of her family to catch up with her.

"I went to TrailFest two years ago," Emily said, noting it was a very fun enjoyable family experience.

She said her family had also seen Hatfield-McCoy on Fisher's ATV World show. Ironically, the Fisher's crew was present bright and early at the event, meeting with fans and filming footage. Soon Emily and her family were inside enjoying the Casino Night event, where riders got the chance to win Hatfield-McCoy Money which they in turn cashed in on prizes during an auction.

Lisa and Darren Staton and their friend Nick Borror had a good time at Casino Night and Nick surprised his friends with his remarkable winning streak. The trio was from Fayetteville North Carolina.

"This is our fifth trip here," Darren said.

"A friend of ours brought us up here the first time," Lisa said. "We had seen it online in 2005 and we enjoy coming back."

"We actually came twice in 2005," Darren said. "Our first trip was just a regular visit and our second trip was for one of the events, we did our first TrailFest that time."

The Statons said they were impressed at how much the events, the trails and the Hatfield-McCoy communities have grown over the years. This years' TrailFest was an extra special event. As Hatfield-McCoy's own head honcho, Executive Director Jeff Lusk told the crowd gathered for casino night, in addition to the chance to win cash and prizes there would be a lot more fun over the next few days including live music, an ATV-Dirtbike-UTV costume parade and even a birthday party with cake over the course of the weekend, as well as musical groups like the Blackwater Outlaws and cook outs.

Traditional fun events like the mudpit and the drag strip were also attended heavily on Thursday night. The TrailFest event has continued to grow and get better and better with each year and 2010 is a great example. Hatfield-McCoy's Marketing Director, the friendly and affable Mike Pinkerton, was super busy on Thursday helping vendors get set up, assisting people at the campgrounds and basically trying to keep things going as smoothly as you possibly can, when you have hundreds of people pulling into town.

Six different media groups were present filming footage of the event, noted Pinkerton. There were 12 vendors set up in the field beyond the Harless Center.

"If we had any more vendors it would take away from the accommodations at the campgrounds," Mike said. "Yamaha and Can Am are here with their trailers and they have demo areas next to them."

What my pal Pinkerton didn't' tell me was how sizable and impressive the Yamaha trailer was. Think 18-wheeler on steroids with a glandular problem. It was HUGE! I can only imagine the new products that were inside that rolling fortress for riders to get a sneak peak and demo ride on! Mike told me that in many ways TrailFest was the same this year as in the past, just bigger and better organized.

Mayor Vivian Livingood was on hand helping with registration at the front desk when riders came to sign in, and said she was excited to see such a great turnout for the event and the good weather for what is a great week for business in the town. Over at the local McDonalds, a lovely young lady named Becky agreed. She said it was a super busy day at the restaurant thanks to the TrailFest event and a ballgame in town that night.

Remember, you still have time to come on out and enjoy TrailFest!