Wellsville

Wellsville is the name riders use for a steep, rocky patch of eastern Ohio hill country above the Ohio River, best known as the Forbidden Zone ATV Campground (also called Yellow Creek, The Pitts, and, on some listings, The Village OHV Club). The riding is old-school: powerline clear-cuts with quarter-mile hill climbs, rocky ravines and boulder sections, creek bottoms along Rocky Run, and a lot of unmarked trail. One rider describes a 175-acre campground property surrounded by large tracts of logged and mineral-rights land, with most of the trails on that surrounding ground. It suits experienced riders; reports say the trails are unmaintained and some of the rock sections are well beyond intermediate ability.

Getting there

The campground sits on Township Road 306 (Dry Run Road) near Hammondsville, in Jefferson County. A listing gives directions from Wellsville: take SR-7 south about 2 miles, turn west on SR-213 for 3.4 miles, then turn north on Dry Run Road for about a mile, with the entrance on the right. A rider describes a steep, rugged dirt and gravel road climbing from Township Road 306 up to the parking area. Wellsville is about 30 miles from Pittsburgh and 20 miles north of Steubenville.

Fees, permits, and rules

This is private land, and the only riding reported as legal here was through the campground. A November 2023 rider report puts the fee at $20 per day to ride or to ride and camp. An older RiderPlanet listing shows $12 per rider for non-members and a $500 annual membership. Camping was described as very primitive. Ohio requires an off-highway motorcycle registration for riding on public land, but this is private property, so confirm what applies with the owner.

Check before you go. A RiderPlanet listing updated in May 2025 marks the area as closed. It says the ground is now a checkerboard of private property and not recommended for riding or camping. Forum posts from 2023 and 2024 describe it as still operating. Nobody we found has confirmed the current status, so contact the campground and do not ride the surrounding parcels without permission.

When to ride

No source gives a season or hours. Reports describe weekend riding, with holiday weekends crowded and non-holiday weekends letting riders cover more ground. The steep clay and creek sections are likely slick when wet, but no source says so directly.