West Virginia

My friends Nikki and Scott invited me to visit them in West Virginia, where they were working on a wind energy project in the Canaan Valley for the fall. After seeing a few pictures and doing a little research on the web, I decided it could be an awesome fall trip. It was almost just a solo trip, but at the last minute Randy decided to join me. So 10/4-10/11 we travelled around eastern and southern West Virginia.

Day 1 - We arrived in Pittsburgh, PA around lunchtime, settled into our Ford Fiesta, and drove down through Morgantown, WV, home of WVU, and proceeded through some pretty scenic and wild roads to Davis. It was misting the entire way, and we found out that only the day before it had been SNOWING, 5 inches in the mountains! Luckily for us the gloomy spelled passed and we had wonderful weather all week long - sunny and 70s = BLISS. We eventually met up with Nikki and drove into Oakland, MD for some groceries and then just hung out at their house that evening. They were living at the end of a street in a house with huge windows overlooking a large pond with the mountains as a backdrop. Randy and I got the 3rd floor all to ourselves.

view from our room

Day 2- Nikki had the day off, so the 3 of us headed to Elkins to board a train. Our ride travelled along a fork of the Cheat River, eventually passing Cheat Falls. We were by far the youngest folks on the train, most were pushing 80+, but it was really fun!

train running beside the river

Day 3 - Nikki returned to work with Scott, so Randy and I were on our own the rest of the week. We decided to stay local and check out the many hiking oportunities that abound in the area. Blackwater Falls State Park, Canaan Valley Resort State Park, and Canaan Valley NWR are just outside in their greater backyard, in addition to the entire Monongahela National Forest! We first headed to Blackwater Falls to check out the namesake, named for the color of the water resulting from the tannins from the spruce and hemlock leaves leaching in the water.

Blackwater Falls

After the falls, we hiked a short trail at Canaan Valley Resort State Park where we found the best mixed flock of birds we had the entire trip, including 2 inquisitive Black-throated Green Warblers who came in close enough for decent shots with my normal lens.

After that hike, we decided to head over to the mountainous side of the park, take the ski lift up the mountain, and hike 2.5 mi across to the bald knob and back down. We found remnant snow in the evergreens and discovered that the recent bad weather had knocked down lots of branches, making the trail an obstacle course much of the way. It was a pretty steep descent too, so my knees and I were not getting along well.

view from the ski lift

view from the bald knob

Day 4 - We did a monster 12 mi hike along the Bear Rocks trail in Dolly Sods Wilderness Area north. We had 2 creek crossings that involved barefeet and toward the end almost a mile through a sopping wet bog! Randy went up to his knees TWICE in bog funk ON THE TRAIL!!! He was doomed from the start as he quickly discovered his hiking shoes were falling apart and his feet were wet from almost the start. I however was wearing my waterproof LOWAs and was doing fine, even when the trail was basically winding down a stream bed. Until the bog! Then my low-tops did not prove enough! I attempted bog hopping and jumping for a while, but the ground was so wet everywhere there was just no escaping it. It was a beautiful, scenic, awesome hike, but we were so ready to be done by the end!

Randy on top of some nice boulders we found

Jenn crossing the creek

whoa! that is a sloppy trail!

Day 5 - After the long hike at Dolly Sods, we were ready to sit back and enjoy some scenery. We spent the day doing a leisurely drive to nearby Seneca Rocks (too tired to hike straight up to the overlook) and then through the Monongahela forest. We went to Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia. The drive up was very scenic and at the top is a great overlook with views in all directions of the mountains in fall foliage. We also walked the boardwalk around Cranberry Glades, where we got a nice mixed flock of birds hanging out in the bog forest. Near Cranberry Glades is a scenic byloop, which actually provided the fastest driving of the whole day until the interstate. We were actually overloaded with pretty vistas around every corner! Eventually, we reached the end of the forest and made it to the interstate, which is perhaps the most scenic stretch of interstate, and headed to Beckley for the night.

Seneca Rocks

view from Spruce Knob

Cranberry Glades

Day 6 - First thing, we headed north to the New River, ironically named since it is in fact one of the oldest rivers on Earth. We had a morning tour scheduled to walk under the New River Gorge bridge on a 2 ft wide catwalk. This bridge was the longest single span arch bridge in the world when built in the 70's and is now 3rd, and it crosses 850+ feet above the river itself.

view of the New River Gorge Bridge

view under the bridge - catwalk

view from the catwalk, see the tiny bridge below

It took about 2.5-3 hrs to cross; we stopped a lot to admire, take pictures, hear stories about the bridge. We also got up close and personal with a Peregrine Falcon who lives on the bridge, one of a pair that nest there!

Next we went on a rock climbing adventure (following up from my last post!). First we got to rappel down ~80 ft climb and then we got to climb 2 routes. One was twice as high as the other, but the shorter one was more vertical and I thought more technical. I was one of 2 females (of 8)that made it up both routes. We climbed the high route once and the hard route twice and rappeled down three times. The college kids were ready to go after most only made one attempt. I LOVED IT!!!

Randy almost at the top of the high route

Jenn stretching for the last rock to make it to the top

Jenn rappelling down

Day 7 - The grand finale of our trip was a water-water rafting trip down the Lower New River. Those familiar with either West Virginia or with white-water rafting may recognize this as "Gauley season", the 6-week period in the fall when water is released into the Gauley River from the Summersville dam producing worldclass white-water conditions. The upper Gauley is super hardcore, class 5s and the lower is pretty hardcore with 4s and 5s. So despite much protesting from Randy, with a whopping 1 white-water rafting trip under his belt, I decided to pass on the Gauley as my first experience and opted for the intermediate adventure instead. The lower New River provided a range from class 2-5, mostly 3s and 4s. WOW - that was a crazy adrenaline ride! We sat in the middle with another couple in the front and our guide on the back of the smallest raft (providing the biggest ride oh my!). We actually made it through every rapid (amazingly), but we did flip the raft during an attempt to surf the rapids that went bad. It was crazy scary in the few seconds leading up to it when I could tell my side was heading under, but once it happened those survival instincts kick in, oh and the big yellow lifejacket that pulls you to the surface immediately helps some too. I thought every rapid was super scary but I was able to loosen up more after the fall (you know, since I had survived and all). It was an amazing experience. The biggest bummer is that the second guide who had his own raft was not a videographer (as I had expected from the website) and I did not have a waterproof camera, so my bravest adventure of all went undocumented, except one picture I took of Randy beforehand.

Randy before the river

Day 8 - We returned to Davis after our rafting trip on day 7. We were not due back in Pittsburgh until early evening of day 8 for a rather late flight. So we ate at the Flying Pigs, did a short hike out to Table Rock for more gorgeous scenery (shocking). And then we proceeded on a slow drive back to Pittsburgh, slow due to our having time on our hands, then construction, then traffic, then not so much spare time;) Awe, another awesome vacation.

one of many pretty pictures of a very pretty place - Table Rock