There is nothing to do on the East Coast report....

[mtnbike28]

Being a teacher at a community college, I get a good amount of time off, but no control when it is, in fact I don't earn vacation time. So when the school calendar was released (I teach in the summer too) I saw I had a week off and invited several friends from all over the east coast to join us in West Virginia... as the months went by, we formed a plan....

Day one was spent on the Cheat River. 11 miles of class 1 and 2 rapids.

Fossil hunting on the river

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Day 2, back to the Cheat River, and the next 11 miles....

After kayaking, we moved south to Gatewood Campground, we rented the group site on top a mountain that used to have a fire tower. When we checked in, we were told over a 100 bears were killed on the mountain in the last season, we never saw one, they must have killed them all.

Day 3, After a leisurely breakfast, we headed to Seneca Rocks to hike to the top....

After lunch at the top, we hiked back down at stopped at a swimming hole at the bottom.

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We decided to have dinner and watch the sunset, so we drove to the top of Spruce Knob to make dinner.

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Day 3 - time for Spelunking.

We decided to visit two caves today, the first is one I have wanted to do since I started visiting wild caves. Sinks of Gandy, it is not a technical cave, but features a river that you have to swim out of. We decided to take the dog ; )

Most of the cave was walking through larger rooms and passages. Then the swim, it was way over my head and VERY cold.

Cave #2 was more technical and tighter. Stillhouse Cave

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Day 4 - We started our last day visiting the observation tower on Spruce Knob, at 4,863 feet is the highest point in West Virginia.

Our next stop was the town of Durbin, a railroad town from the 1900’s that started in the logging boom. I had read it was more rustic than Cass, but our visit was during it’s big recreation of a railroad robbery.

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The original overland vehicle. On board water, storage boxes, an awning....

Next was the Gaudineer Knob Virgin Spruce Forest, due to an error by surveyors, it features 250 year old spruce trees and a great hike.

Then it was time to say goodbyes and enjoy the beautiful drive home, over 5 hours, no interstates and roads like this.

yep, nothing to do on the East Coast.

This is my 6th time visiting Monongahela National Forest, and the only thing we repeated was the swimming hole, everything else was new.

Opps - it says I can't post more than 25 pictures in a trip report, a lot more are on my blog www.jaycapers.com

 

[fike]

I too love the mountains of Monongahela. All your spots were familiar to me and made me want to go right back out again. I would add the Canaan Valley area where there are a few nice offroad trail routes through Canaan mountain and along the Canyon Rim of the Blackwater River. This all ignores one of West Virginia's crown jewels at the Dolly Sods Wilderness. Lots of my pics here: http://trailpixie.net/

Olson Tower View

Bear Rocks on Dolly Sods

Autumn at Phare's Hollow Rocks in Dolly Sods (looking towards the Lion's head)

 

[mtnbike28]

Great pictures fike. I have never visited "The Mon" in fall, I love those colors! I have visited those sites on other trips, I swear I could spend a month there and not be bored!

 

[mph]

Looks like a great time exploring and enjoying the outdoors.

 

[SmoothLC]

Wow - after reading the post title I was thinking, "good, so there's nothing to do. Then I won't drive out there."

But I already knew better. Beautiful places. Thanks for sharing your trip.

 

[mtnbike28]

Thanks, SnoothLC, that is a tongue in cheek response to all those on the east coast saying there is nothing to do. As I said, I have been to Monongahela National Forest 6 different times, each for more than a weekend, and have explored new things every trip. It does help I have several traveling hobbies: hiking caving, photography, mtn biking, road biking, kayaking, etc, so I can always find something to do ; )

 

[jim65wagon]

Capers Wild and Wonderful West Virginia Caper

Nothing to do, right. Just the way I like things J. There is so much nothing to do or see in the East, it may take you decades to discover it all.

I'd like to add some photos of our nothing as we were on on the invited list. We were really fortunate. First, to be invited on such a wonderful trip, and second to be able to arrive two days early - we managed a full 8 days away from home and work - it was awesome!

We actually started our trip on Delta Road 1/Camp Road 70. Our nothing to do consisted of setting up camp and getting lost in the Laurels and rocks trying to get to the river behind camp to swim.


Supper was a nice roasted Cornish Game Hen (everyone gets their own little bird!) I always feel like a giant dining on these.




The next day we took a nice hike in the Canaan Valley. The place is beautiful. The early part of the hike felt like walking through Middle Earth












After the hike we re-rigged our Kelty tarp in preparation for an upcoming storm.



We had an excellent supper of Porterhouse steak, twice baked potato, escargot and a Castle Rock Sauvignon




The storm threatened, but it was all bluster and bluff


I amused myself taking some photos






Our third day dawned and we took a leisurely breakfast


We took our time breaking camp and moving to our second camp, Horseshoe Run outside of St. George. It's here we would reset camp, set up an awning for the soon to arrive Flippac -ed Tacoma and meet our leader and friends (mtnbike28 and family)

 

[jim65wagon]

On Wednesday (our fourth) We all loaded up the kayaks and dropped them off at our launch point (CJ's Pizzaria in Parsons), Jay and I then shuttled a vehicle to the take out a St. George. We were ready for a pleasant float.










We all had a great time floating swimming and just plain goofing around








There were a couple of spots where our float became a drag




What happens to your kayak when you remove two adults?


It floats again.....and away......and you have to have a strategically placed teenager downstream to rescue you


We stopped for lunch at this unique rock outcropping


One step out of the boat revealed this piece of history. This huge rock is peppered with Crinoid fossils - an ocean dwelling sea lily (echinoderm) roughly 470 million years old (ordivician)


It's my understanding that sea lillies are animals that looked like these

We floated on down the river


The foot bridge had a Blair Witchy kind of feel to it




Down the river we went


Some of us tried some very unusual paddling techniques


He finally got turned around


but.......where is Debbie?


There she is!




The rock cliffs in the area always have something fascinating on them










Our float finished at the St. George bridge, we loaded up the kayaks and headed for camp. Fun is exhausting!

 

[fireball]

Wow, you guys know how to cook while camping! I'd be worried that I wouldn't want to do anything other than eat if we went camping with you

 

[fike]

That's a beautiful stretch of Cheat River. This shot is from our Holly Meadows float down to St George last summer.

 

[PirateMcGee]

This is great! As a recent transplant to the SE from out west I needed this. Keep em coming!

 

[2scars]

That looks great, heading to Elkins this weekend and hope to take in Seneca and Spruce knob. Thanks for the great photos.

Brandon

 

[fike]

There is a really nice, slightly off-road route along state road 6 /41, Shaver's Fork Rd. Takes two hours or so, depending on how often you stop. It starts at Stuart Recreation area and proceeds 15 or 20 miles along the shavers fork to the town of Parsons. You can return via blacktop in about 30 mins. There is also a nice tower viewpoint along the Stuart memorial drive (rough gravel, state road 91).

So much to do and see...I could go on.

 

[SIZZLE]

Great report and responses! Thanks for all the pics!

 

[dakota123]

awesome!