Turkey Bay OHV Primary Yellow 01

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4.7/5 (3 reviews)
Murray, Kentucky (Trigg County)
Last Updated: 10/14/2022

Trail Information

Highlights

Camping Category Icon Camping
Forest Category Icon Forest
Mud Category Icon Mud
Primary Yellow 1 isn’t a pretty name, but it is a pretty trail through the Kentucky forest. Located smack in the middle of Land Between the Lakes, Turkey Bay OHV Area boasts over 100 miles of off-road trails, and this is one of the main routes through the park. Camping is allowed nearly anywhere along these trails, even shoreline camping and access to Kentucky Lake. These trails are the only designated 4x4/off-road trails in the 170,000 acres in the Lakes National Recreation Area. The 40-mile long national park offers hiking, horse trails, 300 miles of undeveloped shoreline, mountain biking, 400+ miles of scenic roads, and 1400 campsites, including within Turkey Bay. Since this is a primary trail within the OHV park, you will most likely spend time along this trail at some point. Once inside the park, you could spend days exploring it and never take the same way twice. Consider this the first 7 miles of a massive OHV playground and get to Turkey Bay.

Trail Difficulty and Assessment

Trail Navigation

This trail is mostly soft and muddy dirt throughout. The loop trail starts on Turkey Creek Road and loops back around to a road that dumps back out on Turkey Creek Road just before the pay station. The trail comes in at a little over 7 miles and contains no specific obstacles to note, only that mud and rainy conditions can make conditions here change quickly due to the areas of off-camber nature of some of the turns. A 4x4 with clearance is needed for this trail due to the muddy and slippery nature of this trail along with rutting from usage that will be easier to accomplish with some articulation. New and experienced drivers can get through this trail without much of an issue.

Trail Reviews

4.7/5 (3)
Open
Rated 5/5
Visited: 12/27/2022
Difficulty Accuracy: Spot On

The 1/2/3/4 Yellow Trails are core roads (primary) for LBL, so the difficulty is spot on. There are some climbs and drops, but nothing that most trail vehicles couldn't do. My review is more centered around the park itself - this park is one of the most well-laid-out, mapped, and signed parks I've been to. The secondary and tertiary trails between the core roads are great, I could get lost in this park for a week trying every single trail out. Highly recommend this as a destination for overlanders and trail riders - mad rock crawling isn't really a thing here (outside of the rockpile at the top of Yellow 02) but there are technical climbs/descents all over the place - especially the tertiary trails.
Trail Review: Turkey Bay OHV Primary Yellow 01 - Andy Boettcher
Trail Review: Turkey Bay OHV Primary Yellow 01 - Andy Boettcher
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Open
Rated 5/5
Visited: 01/14/2021

My first off road experience... was more up and down than the pics on here suggested, but it was great fun. Took about an hour and 45 to get through it. Mud in lots of spots but I never got stuck. I'm in a '18 JL with all season tires, so I was nervous going in, but it handled everything like a champ. I really enjoyed this trail... more rocks than I had anticipated, and one section around the #19 marker went down severely and was washed out, which made navigating it difficult but it was also very fun. I'll be back.
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Official Crew
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123000
Open
Rated 4/5
Visited: 07/08/2020

This trail was my first foray into the LBL off-road park and it was a muddy mess that was actually pretty fun. 4WD is a MUST here, at one point I couldn't get out of the Jeep because the ground below was so slippery even my boots couldn't get traction. I went on a weekday and didn't encounter too many people, though I imagine there are a lot more ATV's during the summer weekends.
Trail Review: Turkey Bay OHV Primary Yellow 01 - JD Marshall
Trail Review: Turkey Bay OHV Primary Yellow 01 - JD Marshall
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