2026 Adventure X Fest & Tread Lightly Project

One of my top three favorite events every year is Adventure X Fest hosted by Mountain State Overland. Like many current overland adventure travel enthusiasts I was watching MSO videos ever since they posted their first video in 2013. I got to meet Jason and some of his original team back in 2015 at Overland Expo East in Asheville, North Carolina. Ever since then our paths continue to cross multiple times each year and I’ve been lucky enough to become friends with many of the MSO team members. So, when I say AXFest is one of my favorite events, it has a lot to do with the people. In fact, all of the best events are made as good as they are because of the people.

Cover-photo courtesy of Mountain State Overland.

Monongahela National Forest Tread Lightly Project Summary

The other reason I enjoy the MSO AXFest events so much is that for the last few years they’ve been incorporating a Tread Lightly project on the day prior to the event. This illustrates the passion that Jason and his team have for the overland community extends to nature itself. There are a lot of content creators and companies in this industry that take the natural world around us, and more specifically our public lands, for granted. It’s refreshing to descend upon something like Monongahela National Forest — aka “the Mon” — with a group of like minded people who are able, willing, and eager to step up and do their part to help protect tout public lands. You can read about past events and projects here:

• 2025 Adventure X Fest event summary
• 2025 Pre-Adventure X Fest Tread Lightly project summary
• 2024 Pre-Adventure X Fest Tread Lightly project summary
• 2023 Pre-Adventure X Fest Tread Lightly project summary

Three years ago the AXFest Tread Lightly volunteers spent the day cleaning up the Laurel Fork Campground near Spruce Knob Lake. This campground features two small loops with a few established campsites, pit toilets, and a pavilions on each side of the forest service road. You can read about that project here. Since then Laurel Fork Campground has become the volunteer team’s basecamp for the projects last year and this year. You can read about last year’s project here.

This year the team rolled up to the Spruce Knob Lake Campground area to help the USFS team do some much needed sprucing up. Did you catch that pun? I hope you did. Anyway, after project and safety briefings by Lowell from Tread Lightly and the USFS project manager we broke into three groups. The first group dropped down to the sign at the entrance to the campground to perform some reconstructive masonry to the stonework on the sign’s base. The second group grabbed paint brushes and rollers and tacked giving the campground’s pump house a much needed facelift. The third group, the one I joined, grabbed loppers, saws, and snips and gave all the campsites in the campground — all 42 of them — a long overdue trimming.

With duties assigned, the teams wasted no time in getting to work. Once our team was done trimming the brush in the campsites we dropped down to last year’s project site at Spruce Knob Lake to check on the trail there and knock back any brush that was growing over the trail. As the other teams finished their respective projects they joined us down at the lake for a group photo.

That night all of the volunteers came together for a potluck dinner back at the Laurel Fork Campground. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited about the potluck. Group potlucks at events has been a favorite of mine going back to the American Adventurist Appalachian Rendezvous events in Uwharrie, North Carolina. While somewhat impossible to manage at larger events, smaller gatherings are ripe for potlucks and, as someone whose love language is cooking, I’m all for it. My contribution this year was my infamous Chicken Stir-fry on the Skottle. I opted for a double-batch this year and was not surprised to see the Skottle barren when dinner was over.

2026 Adventure X Fest Summary

The next morning the MSO team and AXFest volunteers headed up to Experience Learning to start prepping for the 2026 Adventure X Fest event! There’s not much to say about AXFest that I haven’t said in past reports. It’s a great event attended by great people in a great location. I can’t think of a better way to spend an early fall weekend than hanging out in the Mon with a group of great people. That said, there were a few new things this year. The MSO team took a small group out on a guided ride. The Experience Learning staff hosted a caving trip and an orienteering class. There were also a series of evening talks hosted by MSO partners and AXFest vendors like OK4WD, Blue Ridge Overland Gear, and GPFactor. There was even an impromptu talk by the founder of Experience Learning property and how he saved it from being developed into condos and a golf course. Something we’re all grateful for. It’s things like that which make AXFest a great event. There’s always something new and you never know who might show up.

As always AXFest was simply put, a good time. Something I look forward to every year and something I’m already eagerly awaiting to lock into my 2027 schedule. If you’ve never been, I encourage you to take the opportunity to come at least once. Then you might see why roughly 95% of AXFest attendees have attended multiple years — myself included. I’ve been to all six, and many of my friends there have as well.

One of the fun things this year was breaking out the SCX30 remote control crawlers.
Nothing like a little “micro-landing” to pass the time.
The gravel road though experience learning provided some fun spots to crawl. Was fun to get the kids involved.

Thank you to Jason, the MSO team, the AXFest volunteers, the MSO Partner-Vendors, Experience Learning, and the Mountain Table team for making the event possible!