I'm not much of a glutton for agony, and certainly don't function well on little sleep. I get cranky when I'm hungry and unable to immediately find food, and I don't deal well with cold temperatures unless I'm overly dressed. So, how I managed to find myself climbing up "The Wall," the steepest slope Snowshoe Mountain resort has to offer, on my mountain bike at 2:50 AM in a slight drizzle on an unseasonably cold June night in the high 30's, wearing only a short sleeved jersey and cycling shorts, hungry to the degree that I felt malnourished, is completely baffling. But, there I was, and the two reasons I didn't fall over and surrender to the mountain are named Marty McKeon and Justin Leidy.
Marty and Justin were my teammates in the 2004 24 Hours of Snowshoe, a relay-style mountain bike race held at WV's most notorious mountain resort deep within the peaks of Pocahontas County. We called ourselves the Fighting Toads. In a previous life, Marty and Justin were subjected to the arguably harsh training regimen that I designed for them as their rowing coach, a thankless job that, perhaps due to its thanklessness, often becomes as much a competition between coaches as it does between oarsmen ("Oh yeah? My rowers work so hard that . . . "). Because of the historical dynamic of this trio, I simply had to continue. Then, of course, there was that survival instinct telling me that surrenduring may provoke an early demise.
Our 4th team member had dropped out of the race just before sundown after taking two laps through the mud-choked course. That was about eight hours after Marty started the race in our pole position, and about sixteen hours before it would end at noon the following day. This meant that each of us had about 3 or 4 hours of rest between consecutive excruciating laps, but it also meant that my dropping from the race would be devastating to my teammates.
The next series of events represents a time I consider to be my life's most trauma-inducing, and it happened after completing that ridiculously late night lap. Upon stumbling into our pit, a campsite among a sea of campsites, I began firing up my post-lap routine, this being the fourth time I'd done it. Drop the bike. Grunt greetings to the half-passed-out racers and their next of kin. Open the hatch of the Escape Pod (photo, left) to reveal the mobile kitchen. Jam the ski pole into place to hold the hatch up. Take anything edible, place into blender. Switch the switch to on. Add soymilk as needed to thin. Chug.
You'd think that an entire Cuisinart carafe full of oatmeal, soymilk, bananas, Gu, chocolate, and probably dirt, chain grease, and grass would be difficult to drink. I must admit that it goes down surprisingly fast after about 1.5 hours of pushing, carrying, and (sometimes) riding a mountain bike through bogs of knee-deep mud, down screaming descents, through fields of basketball-sized boulders, and up gravity-defying steeps. That's about 1.5 liters of quasi-solid food, and I chased it with about a liter of water. I didn't feel hungry after that, but was as aware as one can be in this situation that I needed more. I grabbed a loaf of sandwich bread and another bottle of water and slid into my tent.
Getting into a tent while covered in mud, wearing a bike helmet, cycling shoes, and hydration pack, is not an ideal situation. But, I did it anyway, shaking head to toe. I covered myself with everthing in the tent, including all of the gear Justin had left behind when he vacated the tent to receive the baton from me at the transition area. I saw in his eyes that, as much as he'd appreciated my completion of the lap, he'd have been perfectly fine if I hadn't showed up for another hour.
I put a piece of bread in my mouth and it immediately absorbed all of the moisture in my mouth, coagulating into a big ball of sticky mush that I was unable to chew. Dashing out of the tent for the Heimlich to remove that ball of mush would have been far more than I could handle at this point. I squirted water over it in an attempt to break it up, which was successful. I continued this a few times while drifting off to sleep, but I first took a moment to ponder the possibility that I would not wake up, which actually didn't sound too bad since waking would have to happen in a short three hours with the knowledge that I'd have get up to ride another lap. At least it might be light out at that time.
I did that next lap, and it was light. It was a surprisingly fast lap, the early morning sun simultaneouly warming me and the mountain. We were both steaming.
To this day, the desolate, desparate, and disoriented feeling I felt that night on "The Wall" returns to my gut every time I hear the song that the race promoters pumped over the sound system at the start of the race. It was the Black Eyed Peas, "Let's Get It Started," and it smacks of a WV moment I'll never forget, as much as I'd love to.
Git 'r Dun.
31 January, 2007
28 January, 2007
Hopeville Canyon
It's not often that you get to soak up the sun while surfing a 6 foot river wave at the base of a 1000 foot cliff in a remote canyon that you can only get to by kayak.
My friends Mark and Liam joined me for another trip to the Dolly Sods area in the spring of 2006. Liam's girlfriend , Lauren, came along as well for a relatively spontaneous trip out that way. The rain had been coming down for days, and I had been watching the online USGS river gauge for the local waterway, the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac (NFSB). Must be some old Indian name.
More specifically, we were interested in the section of river that flows through Hopeville Canyon, about a 4 mile long ride through a deep gorge. It's a short run by most river's standards, and the put in and take out are right alongside Rt. 55 between Petersburg and Seneca Rocks, but once you're on the water and around the first bend, there's no walking out. Both sides of the river are thickly forested when trees are able to take root in the steep hillside. Otherwise, the rocky canyon walls stretch vertically and you have to lay back on the stern deck of your kayak just to get the full effect.
We'd started on a Saturday morning, leaving from DC. By the time we got about 45 minutes east of our destination, concern began to set in. The river was in the trees, and running brown. To a boater, this spells high water, which in many cases is the best time, but if too high, you can expect to see dead trees floating down the river, which are prone to getting stuck on rocks, creating what boaters refer to as strainers. Strainers are one of our worst case scenarios. In addition, high water tends to make eddies, the small pools of calmer water behind rocks that boaters use to slow down, stop, or regroup, far and few between, and much less calm. American Whitewater rates this section of the NFSB as Class II-III, so weren't too concerned, but that rating is based on a river depth between 5 and 7 feet at the gauge, about 2 miles below the canyon.
We drove to the point on the river where the USGS collects its data and found the gauge. However, in many cases, gauges are no longer metersticks on the sides of a bridge pier or simply poking out of the river. The stick gauge has been replaced by the gauging station, which are solar-powered electronic gauges that uplink data to a server at USGS so that readers looking at a website can get necessary information about the river. Here's the one I had been checking. This is a fantastic resource, because one can now get accurate, realtime readings of depth, flow, and sometimes even temperature. However, the convenience stops when you get to the location, because unless you're holding a computer that is linked to the Internet, you have no idea what the current level is. Ain't technology great?
We were suspicious that the river was too high for our skills, which was quite possible given said skills, the remoteness of this run, and the amount of rain that had come down in the past couple of days. I had run the canyon once before, so I had a general idea of what we were getting into, and wasn't willing to go for it until we got some "beta" (aka, current information) on the river. We decided that Pizza Hut was our answer.
Ten miles back in Petersburg, we called Mark's wife, Yasmeen, and walked her through to the USGS gauge website for the NFSB while throwing down some Original Pan. Unfortunately, the USGS site for the NFSB only updates every 4 hours, and at the time, we were looking at beta from 3.5 hours before. It was a safe level. However, when we checked a gauge publicized as an alternate gauge for the canyon that was current, it was too high. We decided that we'd try to handle it anyway, and just be extra cautious. This a commonly made decision, and many times is inappropriately influenced by the fact that you've driven your boat and all your gear several hours to run a great river, and you don't want to turn back after all that. Case in point.
A couple of hours later, we were at the location described in the first paragraph. Surfing a river wave can be tiring when there are only three of us (i.e., only one guy in front of you in line), and when you have to cross a significant current to get into the wave from the eddy. So, we spent a gorgeous afternoon alternating between surfing and resting in the secluded canyon. I can't wait to get back to Hopeville Canyon when the river's running, and preferably at about 7.5 feet on the Cabins gauge.
We crashed at the cabin that night and woke up early to get back out to our outstanding wave before heading back to DC.
Git 'r Dun.
My friends Mark and Liam joined me for another trip to the Dolly Sods area in the spring of 2006. Liam's girlfriend , Lauren, came along as well for a relatively spontaneous trip out that way. The rain had been coming down for days, and I had been watching the online USGS river gauge for the local waterway, the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac (NFSB). Must be some old Indian name.
More specifically, we were interested in the section of river that flows through Hopeville Canyon, about a 4 mile long ride through a deep gorge. It's a short run by most river's standards, and the put in and take out are right alongside Rt. 55 between Petersburg and Seneca Rocks, but once you're on the water and around the first bend, there's no walking out. Both sides of the river are thickly forested when trees are able to take root in the steep hillside. Otherwise, the rocky canyon walls stretch vertically and you have to lay back on the stern deck of your kayak just to get the full effect.
We'd started on a Saturday morning, leaving from DC. By the time we got about 45 minutes east of our destination, concern began to set in. The river was in the trees, and running brown. To a boater, this spells high water, which in many cases is the best time, but if too high, you can expect to see dead trees floating down the river, which are prone to getting stuck on rocks, creating what boaters refer to as strainers. Strainers are one of our worst case scenarios. In addition, high water tends to make eddies, the small pools of calmer water behind rocks that boaters use to slow down, stop, or regroup, far and few between, and much less calm. American Whitewater rates this section of the NFSB as Class II-III, so weren't too concerned, but that rating is based on a river depth between 5 and 7 feet at the gauge, about 2 miles below the canyon.
We drove to the point on the river where the USGS collects its data and found the gauge. However, in many cases, gauges are no longer metersticks on the sides of a bridge pier or simply poking out of the river. The stick gauge has been replaced by the gauging station, which are solar-powered electronic gauges that uplink data to a server at USGS so that readers looking at a website can get necessary information about the river. Here's the one I had been checking. This is a fantastic resource, because one can now get accurate, realtime readings of depth, flow, and sometimes even temperature. However, the convenience stops when you get to the location, because unless you're holding a computer that is linked to the Internet, you have no idea what the current level is. Ain't technology great?
We were suspicious that the river was too high for our skills, which was quite possible given said skills, the remoteness of this run, and the amount of rain that had come down in the past couple of days. I had run the canyon once before, so I had a general idea of what we were getting into, and wasn't willing to go for it until we got some "beta" (aka, current information) on the river. We decided that Pizza Hut was our answer.
Ten miles back in Petersburg, we called Mark's wife, Yasmeen, and walked her through to the USGS gauge website for the NFSB while throwing down some Original Pan. Unfortunately, the USGS site for the NFSB only updates every 4 hours, and at the time, we were looking at beta from 3.5 hours before. It was a safe level. However, when we checked a gauge publicized as an alternate gauge for the canyon that was current, it was too high. We decided that we'd try to handle it anyway, and just be extra cautious. This a commonly made decision, and many times is inappropriately influenced by the fact that you've driven your boat and all your gear several hours to run a great river, and you don't want to turn back after all that. Case in point.
A couple of hours later, we were at the location described in the first paragraph. Surfing a river wave can be tiring when there are only three of us (i.e., only one guy in front of you in line), and when you have to cross a significant current to get into the wave from the eddy. So, we spent a gorgeous afternoon alternating between surfing and resting in the secluded canyon. I can't wait to get back to Hopeville Canyon when the river's running, and preferably at about 7.5 feet on the Cabins gauge.
We crashed at the cabin that night and woke up early to get back out to our outstanding wave before heading back to DC.
Git 'r Dun.
27 January, 2007
Arbitrarily Close to Heaven, Part n
It's about time I write about my favorite spot in the state, located at roughly 38°59′45″N, 79°22′05″W. It is the location of the Dolly Sods Wilderness, a part of the Monongahela National forest. Not surprisingly, Wikipedia is a better reference for information about the area than even the state's website. Here is that link.
I've visited the area nearly a dozen times in two years, thanks in majority to our good friends and neighbors, Mark and Margot, who own a cabin just below the ridgeline on an island of private property. Being a primitive cabin, its impact on the forest is minimal, as it should be. The Wilderness, really a high elevation plateau (East Coast high, that is, at about 4000 ft.), has a history of public use starting with WWI training grounds. The 101st Mountain Division was located a few ridges over at Sececa Rocks at that time, and Dolly Sods became a bomb testing ground. Before that, farming and seasonal livestock grazing were the only use of this land. I only point this out to emphasize the fact that this region has been isolated from civilization for a long, long time, and is still a very remote area.
In January of 2005, I finally was able to take Mark and Margot up on their offer to visit the cabin. It had been a mild winter, and it was in the 40's in DC at the time, so it seemed like it wouldn't be too much of a problem to go. I was told by Mark, however, that getting there at night isn't a good idea for my first time, if I was able to get up the forest road to begin with. No problem, I told him, we'd arrive during the day, and we'd recruited Jeremy (there he is again . . . ) to drive in his Wrangler. (Note to self: it sounds like I might want a Wrangler).
With detailed directions in hand, we took off for the cabin on a Friday. Kirsten would drive up the following morning, making this recon. It's a pretty good feeling to be doing recon. It would take about 3 hours to get there, and the last five miles were more orienteering than they were following a road map. "After the second hairpin, look for the gate," "When you think the driveway turns left, go straight through the brush."
Well, the directions were fine, and we only had to turn around once. This however, was not your ordinary U-turn. While still in the valley, just as we turned off the paved road, it was raining lightly with no snow to speak of. We had stopped at the riverbank and filled the Wrangler (in and on) with a ton of dry driftwood for the night. To our surprise, in under 3 miles up the forest road, we progressively found ourselves driving through about 8 inches of powder, following a set of tracks that couldn't have been older than a day. The Jeep handled famously after Jeremy dropped into 4WD, and I called out landmarks as they came. Just as we came upon a neighboring cabin that we were told indicated that we'd past the gate, the tracks we were following stopped. "We went too far," I said, and Jeremy stopped the Jeep. "Good, I liked following those tracks."
Making a 3-point turn, or even a U-turn in a Wrangler is easy, right? Well, little did we know that there were deep ditches on both sides of the narrow forest road, but their existence was masked because they were filled with snow. We were looking at a white road with a nice shoulder perfectly level with the road surface, or so we thought. Down into the ditch went the passenger side of the Jeep, jarring both of us, and revealing a precarious situation. After dozens of off-road experiences with Jeremy behind the wheel of a Wranger, he finally found his Jeep stuck.
I let him come up with a plan for the Jeep while I walked back down the road to see if we were actually where I thought we were. We were. I opened the gate, and shouted, "We're here!" All we had to do now was to get the Jeep unstuck and travel the half-mile long driveway, which hadn't seen a vehicle since before the snow.
Getting the Jeep unstuck eventually required shovels, roof tiles (all retrieved by walking to the cabin), and lots of umph, but we got it out. Driving to the cabin was relatively easy, and behold, we were in the right place.
In dozens of camping and cabin trips, I've never had to use a fire to keep the crew warm through an extremely cold night, and neither had Jeremy. Needless to say, I woke up several times soaking in sweat, only to wake up two hours after that freezing cold. I'd groan something across the cabin, like, "Dude . . your turn," and Jeremy would go fill up the stove with wood, but only after trying to convince me that it was my turn. I finally figured it out recently, but it's not nearly as easy as, load the woodstove, flame on, rub hands gently to warm. This method eats firewood at an alarming rate, especially if you took it from a heap of driftwood that has the feel of Balsa.
When the two of us woke up at dawn, the Jeep had about 6 inches of fresh snow on its roof and hood. This place gets an incredible amount of snow, and the wind likes to blow it into enormous drifts. Mark told me about a time some years ago when he got his Cherokee stuck, threw the tire chains, and started walking. At each headwall in the road, the drifts were above his head, and so he had to resort to his Army training technique of first throwing his pack over the drift, and then rolling himself over it in order to maximize his surface area and distribute his weight.
Based on Mark's warnings about these snowdrifts, fight lost to flight in our case, and Jeremy and I packed up the Jeep and headed down the mountain. The treat of the weekend was the drive down the forest road through a complete winter wonderland. The tracks we were following yesterday, as well as our own tracks, were not even visible under the blanket of fresh snow. Despite the frigid air, we rolled down the windows for the accoustic effect anybody who's been in a snow-covered forest knows well. We drove about 4 miles per hour, and only partially to be safe.
Five road-miles away and 2000 feet below in the valley, it was still raining, not a flake to be seen. I have many more memories of this place coming in future posts.
Git 'r Dun.
I've visited the area nearly a dozen times in two years, thanks in majority to our good friends and neighbors, Mark and Margot, who own a cabin just below the ridgeline on an island of private property. Being a primitive cabin, its impact on the forest is minimal, as it should be. The Wilderness, really a high elevation plateau (East Coast high, that is, at about 4000 ft.), has a history of public use starting with WWI training grounds. The 101st Mountain Division was located a few ridges over at Sececa Rocks at that time, and Dolly Sods became a bomb testing ground. Before that, farming and seasonal livestock grazing were the only use of this land. I only point this out to emphasize the fact that this region has been isolated from civilization for a long, long time, and is still a very remote area.
In January of 2005, I finally was able to take Mark and Margot up on their offer to visit the cabin. It had been a mild winter, and it was in the 40's in DC at the time, so it seemed like it wouldn't be too much of a problem to go. I was told by Mark, however, that getting there at night isn't a good idea for my first time, if I was able to get up the forest road to begin with. No problem, I told him, we'd arrive during the day, and we'd recruited Jeremy (there he is again . . . ) to drive in his Wrangler. (Note to self: it sounds like I might want a Wrangler).
With detailed directions in hand, we took off for the cabin on a Friday. Kirsten would drive up the following morning, making this recon. It's a pretty good feeling to be doing recon. It would take about 3 hours to get there, and the last five miles were more orienteering than they were following a road map. "After the second hairpin, look for the gate," "When you think the driveway turns left, go straight through the brush."
Well, the directions were fine, and we only had to turn around once. This however, was not your ordinary U-turn. While still in the valley, just as we turned off the paved road, it was raining lightly with no snow to speak of. We had stopped at the riverbank and filled the Wrangler (in and on) with a ton of dry driftwood for the night. To our surprise, in under 3 miles up the forest road, we progressively found ourselves driving through about 8 inches of powder, following a set of tracks that couldn't have been older than a day. The Jeep handled famously after Jeremy dropped into 4WD, and I called out landmarks as they came. Just as we came upon a neighboring cabin that we were told indicated that we'd past the gate, the tracks we were following stopped. "We went too far," I said, and Jeremy stopped the Jeep. "Good, I liked following those tracks."
Making a 3-point turn, or even a U-turn in a Wrangler is easy, right? Well, little did we know that there were deep ditches on both sides of the narrow forest road, but their existence was masked because they were filled with snow. We were looking at a white road with a nice shoulder perfectly level with the road surface, or so we thought. Down into the ditch went the passenger side of the Jeep, jarring both of us, and revealing a precarious situation. After dozens of off-road experiences with Jeremy behind the wheel of a Wranger, he finally found his Jeep stuck.
I let him come up with a plan for the Jeep while I walked back down the road to see if we were actually where I thought we were. We were. I opened the gate, and shouted, "We're here!" All we had to do now was to get the Jeep unstuck and travel the half-mile long driveway, which hadn't seen a vehicle since before the snow.
Getting the Jeep unstuck eventually required shovels, roof tiles (all retrieved by walking to the cabin), and lots of umph, but we got it out. Driving to the cabin was relatively easy, and behold, we were in the right place.
In dozens of camping and cabin trips, I've never had to use a fire to keep the crew warm through an extremely cold night, and neither had Jeremy. Needless to say, I woke up several times soaking in sweat, only to wake up two hours after that freezing cold. I'd groan something across the cabin, like, "Dude . . your turn," and Jeremy would go fill up the stove with wood, but only after trying to convince me that it was my turn. I finally figured it out recently, but it's not nearly as easy as, load the woodstove, flame on, rub hands gently to warm. This method eats firewood at an alarming rate, especially if you took it from a heap of driftwood that has the feel of Balsa.
When the two of us woke up at dawn, the Jeep had about 6 inches of fresh snow on its roof and hood. This place gets an incredible amount of snow, and the wind likes to blow it into enormous drifts. Mark told me about a time some years ago when he got his Cherokee stuck, threw the tire chains, and started walking. At each headwall in the road, the drifts were above his head, and so he had to resort to his Army training technique of first throwing his pack over the drift, and then rolling himself over it in order to maximize his surface area and distribute his weight.
Based on Mark's warnings about these snowdrifts, fight lost to flight in our case, and Jeremy and I packed up the Jeep and headed down the mountain. The treat of the weekend was the drive down the forest road through a complete winter wonderland. The tracks we were following yesterday, as well as our own tracks, were not even visible under the blanket of fresh snow. Despite the frigid air, we rolled down the windows for the accoustic effect anybody who's been in a snow-covered forest knows well. We drove about 4 miles per hour, and only partially to be safe.
Five road-miles away and 2000 feet below in the valley, it was still raining, not a flake to be seen. I have many more memories of this place coming in future posts.
Git 'r Dun.
25 January, 2007
Coopers
I forgot how difficult it is to ride a mountain bike in the snow.
Regardless, Coopers Rock State Forest is pretty incredible right now. The main park road is closed to all vehicles (even park vehicles), making it perfect for mountain biking. Forget about trying to ride the trails. As you can see, it's hard to go straight, but the solitude is worth it.
Git 'r Dun.
24 January, 2007
The Allure of Prop's
This one's a real throwback, and includes the tales of at least three adventures to the Slatyfork area back in the 90's, a region that took a front row seat in my frontal lobe as soon as I read about a mountain bike trail called, "Prop's Run," in a mountain bike magazine. It was listed as the 5th best trail in the country at the time. My best guess is that the first trip to the area was around 1993. A four hour drive made this a perfect roadtrip.
The grand attraction, within which lied the Holy Grail of moutain bike trails, was a remote section of the Monongahela National Forest. We camped anywhere we wanted, which eventually became a well-worn site just off the forest road and near the Elk River. We only really saw humans when we wanted to. Sounds nice, doesn't it?
The trail: I've recently read that this trail has fallen into bad times from a combination of logging and erosion. In the roughly half-dozen times I rode it over a decade ago, I had a difficult time morphing my face out of the smile position after the run. It's that fun. To be totally honest, in all but one case we took the "yak route" by driving to the top of Sharp Knob (I could have that name wrong) in Pocahontas County via Forest Road off Rt. 219. Parking at the top, it's a short ride into vehicle-restricted timber country before a pink ribbon flaps at you, tied to a branch over a small passage between two deciduous trees, welcoming you to the ride of your life. A bit of single track gives way to Prop's Run, which is a proper seasonal tributary of the Elk River that, given the amount of recent precipiation, typically has a small amount of water that consantly kept our tire lugs clear of mud. Descending on a mountain bike for about 40 minutes at high speeds through babyhead sized rocks is no longer my choice ride, but in my late adolescence, it was like a drug.
The "accomodations" of the area, aside from the fantastic mountain biking, were perfect for a college student who was passionate enough to spend all his money on gas getting to a place and leaving the rest to the mountain. The Elk River Touring Center, a full service Inn that even had a small bike shop, kept us well-equipped. We were there for cables, tubes, and their hose pretty frequently in a weekend trip and, I'm ashamed to say, never really patronized the business to a degree that they may have made any money off of us. Someday, I'll make up for it.
Our first trip to the area included Jeremy, who is somehow becoming one of the lead characters in my posts, and Ben Robertaccio. Ben, who apparently didn't camp in bear country as a kid, became notorious for suggesting that we bring our food into the tents with us to keep it safe. We laid into him pretty hard for that one. This was the one and only opportunity that we had to stay at Sambo's Mt. Bike Campground because Sambo closed up shop shortly after we discovered the place. What made Sambo's a "Mt. Bike" campground? Aside from the location, this campground had the top of a bike work stand bolted into a tree stump, creating the choice outdoor bike mechanic's shop. What Sambo's didn't have were the only other reasons one might stay at a campground: picnic tables, bathrooms, water, electricity, etc. I wonder why Sambo's didn't make it . . .
In another trip to Prop's, I was unable to find any mountain bikers to join me, so I was all set to go alone, a pretty bad idea when you consider how remote the forest is down there. Alas, my friend Heather decided at the last minute to join me, though she was only going to camp, so my worst case scenario went from being injured in the woods with nobody knowing where I was or when I ought to return to being injured in the woods with Heather miles away expecting me at some prearranged time. An improvement, but I didn't worry about the worst case back then, anyway. This trip produced an innovation that I still talk about today: the two-ply tent. When the mercury dropped below 30, and we were expecting warm weather, we took Heather's small, free-standing tent, and pitched it inside my larger tent, creating a buffer of a few feet between the two tents. A handful of blankets on top of the sleeping bags, and we were ready for the night. It worked famously.
In a summertime trip to the area, again with Jeremy, but that also included my ex-wife, Kirsten, and a guy I was rowing with named Chicken Little (ok, his name is Eric Kluth, but he seemed to like the moniker, so it stuck . . . ok, he didn't really like it, but we did, so it stuck). Kirsten had a WV moment getting to the area, as she had left a day or two after us for some reason. This was before cell phones were so widespread, though I doubt they are reliable in Slatyfork today, so the plan was something like this: we'll keep a car parked at the trailhead for the campsite. Park there, blow your horm a few times, and start walking into the woods. We'll come get you. If you're not there by Sunday night, we'll start worrying. We eventually found out that starting to worry isn't a plan; it's a reaction. What do we do when she doesn't show? Worry. Brilliant!!
After calls to friends, family, and even the WV State Police, all from the pay phone at the Inn, Kirsten finally came rolling along in her Oldsmobile pretty late on Sunday night. I'll admit I was a mess. She explained that she nearly passed out when smoke started coming in the car on the backroads, was scared for her life while some "mechanic" inspected her car (nothing's open in these parts on a Sunday), and feared she'd never make it when the guy started fabricating parts to fix her car out of old hardware. She made it, and to this day, nobody knows what was wrong with the car or how he fixed it. It just worked from that day on.
That trip was the best of all of the times I've been there, despite our very successful plan to worry about Kirsten and her wipeout the next day. We discovered off-roading in Jeremy's first Wrangler (this one was white, I think) and even buried it about 4 feet of mud, killing the engine. It started back up (whew!). We probably biked more of the trail network than in all of the other trips combined. We found out that hunting camps can take the most outrageous forms, like a school bus and a 40 foot high pile of coal with a 3-walled, 8 foot high shack built next to it. "No need to go outside to get more fuel for the fire! Just stick a shovel in that wall over there and throw it in the stove!" Eric and I made a "rescue" by rushing back to the campsite to get a car after a long ride, leaving Kirsten and Jeremy at a campground we stumbled upon and returning with the car well after dark. We returned to find the two of them huddled around a fire, drinking beers with some campers.
Git 'r Dun.
The grand attraction, within which lied the Holy Grail of moutain bike trails, was a remote section of the Monongahela National Forest. We camped anywhere we wanted, which eventually became a well-worn site just off the forest road and near the Elk River. We only really saw humans when we wanted to. Sounds nice, doesn't it?
The trail: I've recently read that this trail has fallen into bad times from a combination of logging and erosion. In the roughly half-dozen times I rode it over a decade ago, I had a difficult time morphing my face out of the smile position after the run. It's that fun. To be totally honest, in all but one case we took the "yak route" by driving to the top of Sharp Knob (I could have that name wrong) in Pocahontas County via Forest Road off Rt. 219. Parking at the top, it's a short ride into vehicle-restricted timber country before a pink ribbon flaps at you, tied to a branch over a small passage between two deciduous trees, welcoming you to the ride of your life. A bit of single track gives way to Prop's Run, which is a proper seasonal tributary of the Elk River that, given the amount of recent precipiation, typically has a small amount of water that consantly kept our tire lugs clear of mud. Descending on a mountain bike for about 40 minutes at high speeds through babyhead sized rocks is no longer my choice ride, but in my late adolescence, it was like a drug.
The "accomodations" of the area, aside from the fantastic mountain biking, were perfect for a college student who was passionate enough to spend all his money on gas getting to a place and leaving the rest to the mountain. The Elk River Touring Center, a full service Inn that even had a small bike shop, kept us well-equipped. We were there for cables, tubes, and their hose pretty frequently in a weekend trip and, I'm ashamed to say, never really patronized the business to a degree that they may have made any money off of us. Someday, I'll make up for it.
Our first trip to the area included Jeremy, who is somehow becoming one of the lead characters in my posts, and Ben Robertaccio. Ben, who apparently didn't camp in bear country as a kid, became notorious for suggesting that we bring our food into the tents with us to keep it safe. We laid into him pretty hard for that one. This was the one and only opportunity that we had to stay at Sambo's Mt. Bike Campground because Sambo closed up shop shortly after we discovered the place. What made Sambo's a "Mt. Bike" campground? Aside from the location, this campground had the top of a bike work stand bolted into a tree stump, creating the choice outdoor bike mechanic's shop. What Sambo's didn't have were the only other reasons one might stay at a campground: picnic tables, bathrooms, water, electricity, etc. I wonder why Sambo's didn't make it . . .
In another trip to Prop's, I was unable to find any mountain bikers to join me, so I was all set to go alone, a pretty bad idea when you consider how remote the forest is down there. Alas, my friend Heather decided at the last minute to join me, though she was only going to camp, so my worst case scenario went from being injured in the woods with nobody knowing where I was or when I ought to return to being injured in the woods with Heather miles away expecting me at some prearranged time. An improvement, but I didn't worry about the worst case back then, anyway. This trip produced an innovation that I still talk about today: the two-ply tent. When the mercury dropped below 30, and we were expecting warm weather, we took Heather's small, free-standing tent, and pitched it inside my larger tent, creating a buffer of a few feet between the two tents. A handful of blankets on top of the sleeping bags, and we were ready for the night. It worked famously.
In a summertime trip to the area, again with Jeremy, but that also included my ex-wife, Kirsten, and a guy I was rowing with named Chicken Little (ok, his name is Eric Kluth, but he seemed to like the moniker, so it stuck . . . ok, he didn't really like it, but we did, so it stuck). Kirsten had a WV moment getting to the area, as she had left a day or two after us for some reason. This was before cell phones were so widespread, though I doubt they are reliable in Slatyfork today, so the plan was something like this: we'll keep a car parked at the trailhead for the campsite. Park there, blow your horm a few times, and start walking into the woods. We'll come get you. If you're not there by Sunday night, we'll start worrying. We eventually found out that starting to worry isn't a plan; it's a reaction. What do we do when she doesn't show? Worry. Brilliant!!
After calls to friends, family, and even the WV State Police, all from the pay phone at the Inn, Kirsten finally came rolling along in her Oldsmobile pretty late on Sunday night. I'll admit I was a mess. She explained that she nearly passed out when smoke started coming in the car on the backroads, was scared for her life while some "mechanic" inspected her car (nothing's open in these parts on a Sunday), and feared she'd never make it when the guy started fabricating parts to fix her car out of old hardware. She made it, and to this day, nobody knows what was wrong with the car or how he fixed it. It just worked from that day on.
That trip was the best of all of the times I've been there, despite our very successful plan to worry about Kirsten and her wipeout the next day. We discovered off-roading in Jeremy's first Wrangler (this one was white, I think) and even buried it about 4 feet of mud, killing the engine. It started back up (whew!). We probably biked more of the trail network than in all of the other trips combined. We found out that hunting camps can take the most outrageous forms, like a school bus and a 40 foot high pile of coal with a 3-walled, 8 foot high shack built next to it. "No need to go outside to get more fuel for the fire! Just stick a shovel in that wall over there and throw it in the stove!" Eric and I made a "rescue" by rushing back to the campsite to get a car after a long ride, leaving Kirsten and Jeremy at a campground we stumbled upon and returning with the car well after dark. We returned to find the two of them huddled around a fire, drinking beers with some campers.
Git 'r Dun.
23 January, 2007
Welcome to West Virginia . . . DUCK!
I'm starting to see a trend here -- that either my memory tends to serve me better for the WV moments for which most WV'inz might not be so proud, or that they're just more interesting to write about.
My first night in WV after taking the position at WVU was in August. I arrived in Mo'town on a Sunday evening only to find out that I couldn't get in to the apartment that I had rented. Fortunately, Jeremy (see Git 'r Dun, below) was staying at his place of employment, Emma Kaufmann Camp, just down the road, so I was able to slip in and out and stay there (no kids at camp makes this an easy task). The following day, I got in to the apartment, moved most of my stuff in, and got to work.
That evening, Jeremy showed up to see the place, and he brought a few friends of his from camp. They stayed for a few beers, oohh'ed and aahhh'ed a couple of times, and out the door they went (is George Thorogood popping into your head? Then you're a classic rocker!), only to come back, sans Jeremy, to let us know that Jeremy's Wrangler (again, see "Git r' Dun") was already up on the lifts and the tow truck was about to pull away. I decided to pretend it wasn't happening (denial is just fine when it's not my car).
I even went as far as to get back to work unpacking my stuff while the others went out onto our patio to watch Jeremy negotiate with the tow-truck driver, who was determined to be about 6'4", 250. Hot headed tempers began to clash while I organized the ties that I never wear. After a few minutes, I gave in and went outside to watch.
I shouldn't have been surprised that most of our neighbors, generalizable as upperclass or graduate WVU students, were out on their patios enjoying the scene as well. The scene was a full-size tow truck, engine running, in gear, lights on, with the aforementioned 6'4", 250 pound driver behind the wheel. Where was Jeremy? He was in front of the tow-truck, pulling a Tienanmen Square bit. Civil rights, however, were not at stake, though you might consider towing your precious Jeep uncivil in this part of the globe.
Before long, the driver is back out of the cab and engaged in a shouting match with Jeremy, who has pulled out the cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. "What's the emergency?" you might ask. "Is he threatening you?" the operator asked Jeremy, aloud on speakerphone. "You're goddamn right I'm threatening him!" boomed the driver, "I'm gonna run his ass over in a minute!" Jeremy continued to call the big man's bluff, and the two continued to shout at each other.
I must admit that recollection is spotty at this time, and I have a feeling that stories will begin to diverge anyway. However, convergence occurs at the moment when the tow truck driver swings at Jeremy, who somehow is missed, and begins chase. Fortunately, neither of the two men are very fast at this point in their respective lives, so those of us spectating were delighted with a nice, long dash across the parking lot. The driver stopped halfway, exhausted, after seeing that Jeremy was gone (he had ducked behind a car), but not until after exclaiming, "I have a fu**in' gun, and I'll fu**in' use it on you!"
The man then casually walked back to the truck and drove away with Jeremy's Jeep.
Naturally, the police showed up shortly thereafter, and I stood next to Jeremy to ensure he kept his cool. I'm happy to say that he did.
The irony of elevated situations such as this is that, around here, the elevation is not carried in excessive costs. Jeremy paid something like $85 to get his Jeep back, a small fraction of what it would have cost anywhere else. Was it worth the drama? From the perspective of a spectator, absolutely!!
Git r' Dun.
My first night in WV after taking the position at WVU was in August. I arrived in Mo'town on a Sunday evening only to find out that I couldn't get in to the apartment that I had rented. Fortunately, Jeremy (see Git 'r Dun, below) was staying at his place of employment, Emma Kaufmann Camp, just down the road, so I was able to slip in and out and stay there (no kids at camp makes this an easy task). The following day, I got in to the apartment, moved most of my stuff in, and got to work.
That evening, Jeremy showed up to see the place, and he brought a few friends of his from camp. They stayed for a few beers, oohh'ed and aahhh'ed a couple of times, and out the door they went (is George Thorogood popping into your head? Then you're a classic rocker!), only to come back, sans Jeremy, to let us know that Jeremy's Wrangler (again, see "Git r' Dun") was already up on the lifts and the tow truck was about to pull away. I decided to pretend it wasn't happening (denial is just fine when it's not my car).
I even went as far as to get back to work unpacking my stuff while the others went out onto our patio to watch Jeremy negotiate with the tow-truck driver, who was determined to be about 6'4", 250. Hot headed tempers began to clash while I organized the ties that I never wear. After a few minutes, I gave in and went outside to watch.
I shouldn't have been surprised that most of our neighbors, generalizable as upperclass or graduate WVU students, were out on their patios enjoying the scene as well. The scene was a full-size tow truck, engine running, in gear, lights on, with the aforementioned 6'4", 250 pound driver behind the wheel. Where was Jeremy? He was in front of the tow-truck, pulling a Tienanmen Square bit. Civil rights, however, were not at stake, though you might consider towing your precious Jeep uncivil in this part of the globe.
Before long, the driver is back out of the cab and engaged in a shouting match with Jeremy, who has pulled out the cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. "What's the emergency?" you might ask. "Is he threatening you?" the operator asked Jeremy, aloud on speakerphone. "You're goddamn right I'm threatening him!" boomed the driver, "I'm gonna run his ass over in a minute!" Jeremy continued to call the big man's bluff, and the two continued to shout at each other.
I must admit that recollection is spotty at this time, and I have a feeling that stories will begin to diverge anyway. However, convergence occurs at the moment when the tow truck driver swings at Jeremy, who somehow is missed, and begins chase. Fortunately, neither of the two men are very fast at this point in their respective lives, so those of us spectating were delighted with a nice, long dash across the parking lot. The driver stopped halfway, exhausted, after seeing that Jeremy was gone (he had ducked behind a car), but not until after exclaiming, "I have a fu**in' gun, and I'll fu**in' use it on you!"
The man then casually walked back to the truck and drove away with Jeremy's Jeep.
Naturally, the police showed up shortly thereafter, and I stood next to Jeremy to ensure he kept his cool. I'm happy to say that he did.
The irony of elevated situations such as this is that, around here, the elevation is not carried in excessive costs. Jeremy paid something like $85 to get his Jeep back, a small fraction of what it would have cost anywhere else. Was it worth the drama? From the perspective of a spectator, absolutely!!
Git r' Dun.
20 January, 2007
The Purple Fiddle
Returning from the Labor Day 2006 weekend in Ohio, Kirsten and I recruited our friends Mike and Donnica to take a detour on the way back to DC. I had to stop in Pittsburgh, so I left a couple of hours earlier than the three others, who were in Mike's car. We communicated by cell phone and found out I was still way ahead of them even after I got back on the road. So, I made it through Morgantown and decided to wait at Jack's Smokehouse (I think it was Jack) in or around Reedsville, WV.
Jack's isn't exaclty a welcoming bar, but their fries are good. Upon walking in the door, the first sight past the two regulars is the bartender, who is wearing a shirt that reads, "SHOW ME YOUR TITS," and that is missing the sleeves. Appropriately, there was armpit hair working its way out. I was a little on edge from that first moment, but didn't want to wait outside, so I stayed. After about an hour, I was joined the rest of the group for a beer. The "date" didn't last long after Kirsten and Donnica saw a creepy poster in the women's room coupled with a creepy comment with the bartender. We left shortly afterwards.
I was the only one who had traveled this route because we typically come from DC, so I wasn't sure where we'd find dinner. And, the towns of Thomas and Davis, WV were pretty much our options, and it was late on a Saturday night, so we were skeptical that we'd find anything aside from a gas station convenience store. We would be dead wrong.
There was one place open in Thomas, and I was pretty sure that the entire town of Davis would be closed, which it was, as we later discovered. We passed the establishment, peered in and saw a crowd and what looked like menus in a bin by the door, and decided this would be the place. After the surprisingly difficult task of finding parking, we got to the door of The Purple Fiddle and at once realized we'd found a gem. It looks like they took an old general store, complete with built-in shelving everywhere, added a stage, put together a great green-ish menu, and
recruited the best bluegrass acts they could find to play every night. To randomly find a place like this is, to me, like stumbling upon Las Vegas while trekking through the Mojave desert, running out of water.
We got to sit outside and hear The Steepcanyon Rangers, and the food was great. People danced, I actually bumped into an old friend, and we stayed awhile. The following weekend, Kirsten and I met there again to see The Speakeasy Boys and got front row seats. You should go there.
From Thomas, we drove about an hour into the Dolly Sods Wilderness to a cabin that our friends Mark and Margot own and let us use, which was the main event. But, that is a matter for another post. More to come . . .
Git 'r Dun.
Jack's isn't exaclty a welcoming bar, but their fries are good. Upon walking in the door, the first sight past the two regulars is the bartender, who is wearing a shirt that reads, "SHOW ME YOUR TITS," and that is missing the sleeves. Appropriately, there was armpit hair working its way out. I was a little on edge from that first moment, but didn't want to wait outside, so I stayed. After about an hour, I was joined the rest of the group for a beer. The "date" didn't last long after Kirsten and Donnica saw a creepy poster in the women's room coupled with a creepy comment with the bartender. We left shortly afterwards.
I was the only one who had traveled this route because we typically come from DC, so I wasn't sure where we'd find dinner. And, the towns of Thomas and Davis, WV were pretty much our options, and it was late on a Saturday night, so we were skeptical that we'd find anything aside from a gas station convenience store. We would be dead wrong.
There was one place open in Thomas, and I was pretty sure that the entire town of Davis would be closed, which it was, as we later discovered. We passed the establishment, peered in and saw a crowd and what looked like menus in a bin by the door, and decided this would be the place. After the surprisingly difficult task of finding parking, we got to the door of The Purple Fiddle and at once realized we'd found a gem. It looks like they took an old general store, complete with built-in shelving everywhere, added a stage, put together a great green-ish menu, and
recruited the best bluegrass acts they could find to play every night. To randomly find a place like this is, to me, like stumbling upon Las Vegas while trekking through the Mojave desert, running out of water.We got to sit outside and hear The Steepcanyon Rangers, and the food was great. People danced, I actually bumped into an old friend, and we stayed awhile. The following weekend, Kirsten and I met there again to see The Speakeasy Boys and got front row seats. You should go there.
From Thomas, we drove about an hour into the Dolly Sods Wilderness to a cabin that our friends Mark and Margot own and let us use, which was the main event. But, that is a matter for another post. More to come . . .
Git 'r Dun.
19 January, 2007
Git r' Dun
It was Labor Day 2004. For five years, my ex-wife, Kirsten, and I had been living in DC, and our outdoor activities generally consisted of exploring the mountains to the west (mostly Shenandoah National Park, VA and the Harper's Ferry, WV area), to the north (in and around Michaux State Forest, PA), or the DelMarVa Coast. With nothing planned for the Labor Day weekend, it was decided to go a bit further than usual and spend the weekend camped at Wonderfalls, a 15-foot waterfall on Big Sandy Creek in Preston County, WV. Because it is within two hours of Pittsburgh, we recruited our friend Jeremy, who brought his dalmation, Pepper, to show us the way to the campsites and invited the Groves (my sister's family: Julie, Matt, and the kids, Jonah and Xavier, at the time, aged 4 and 2, respectively), who came to stay for the day. On Saturday, we met at Little Sandy's Restaurant, a truck stop off I-68 in the truck-stop-dependent town of Bruceton Mills, WV, ate a couple Ostrich burgers, and heaed for the campsite.
Before Jeremy or the Groves arrived, in perhaps a bit of foreshadowing, Kirsten and I sat in the parking lot of the truck stop as a beat-up, muddy Chevy Blazer pulled up next to us and two party-worn kids jumped out. We chatted with them for a minute, discovering that they had just returned from our destination in order to stock up. Their "list" consisted of far more beer than two humans can consume and several Subway sandwiches. Nice guys, and it wouldn't be the last time we would see them.
The plan was neither complex nor ambitious. We're just camping, and we're not even packing gear in to the site. But, only signficantly equipped 4WD vehicles can actually drive to the falls, though any car can make it to within a mile to Rockville, WV, if its owner is willing to drive the backroad. Rockville is not a town. In fact, nobody lives there and it doesn't look like anybody has lived there in the recent past. It just has a bridge over the Big Sandy and a lot of rocks in the creek there and the USGS had to give the place a name when it set up a streamflow gauging station there, I guess.
After a few miles of the shoddily maintained backroads, Jeremy instructed us to park the Civic (our '98 DX Hatchback that went where no '98 DX Hatchback had ever gone before succumbing to the VA emissions regulation in April 2006 . . . it took us a whopping 205,000 miles in that time). Gear and passengers of the Civic (that's me, Kirsten, our dog, Harrison, and our stuff) were transfered to the two Jeeps, and we continued.
Continuing, in this case, consisted of twisting the Jeeps through terrain choked with large rocks, trees, and holes. In yet another bit of foreshadowing, a team of ATV's zipped passed us as we trodded on at one point. The crux move in the journey came when all of the non-driving Jeepgoers refused to stay in the vehicles for a dogleg down into a ravine, an uphill turn when in the bottom of the ravine, and back up out of the ravine. The rear ends of the Jeeps swung at least 4 - 6 feet as each dropped in to the ravine and made the right turn into the gradient of the slope, stopping hearts.
For about 30 minutes, the Jeeps labored along what, at some point, was probably a fairly clear passage into a clearcut forest. That was arguably decades ago, as the larger of the trees around which Jeremy and Matt drove were 2 feet in diameter. Jonah said to us on the 2-way radio we'd brought, "Mommy is scared of the road." "How do you like it, Jonah?" "This is fun! It's bumpy!"
As we approached the camping area, we started to hear the roar. It would take us about 10 minutes or so before we realized that what we thought was our beautiful destination waterfall was, in fact, an army of at least 40 ATV's. The choice activities were donuts in an ankle deep pool of the creek, thereby creating a muddy geyser 30 feet high, and lots and lots of drinking the finest beer in two counties (Natural Light, I believe, it was). A man with one arm ATV'ed past us while sipping, and waved, welcoming us.
The next several hours were spent trying to ignore the group. They were loud, they ran our beautiful waterfall muddy brown, they exploded dynamite, and they threw their cans wherever they landed. In the middle of the ankle deep pool, a man we eventually named "Buttcrack" stood with one hand hooked around a can of beer, the other fisted, pumping in the air. It was Buttcrack, the name begotten from the low hang of his shorts, who would introduce us to the true meaning of "Git 'r Dun!" The name "Buttcrack" could have easily been "Beer Belly," but his namesake got more severe as the beer flowed, so we stuck with it. He repeatly shouted the phrase, "Git 'r Dun!", while his comrades would do donuts around him, sometime as many as 4 or more geysers spouting around him. In a way, it was like he was the center of a Vegas act, and should have been lip synching AC/DC. The act, in this case, came with the unmuffled sound of several ATVs at about 6500 rpms.
The Groves left after a few hours of jumping off the waterfall and swimming about the rocks, and we drove behind them to make sure they got out okay. Jeremy, Kirsten, and I then drove back in with the two dogs, looking forward to the ATV group's departure. There was very little camping gear scattered about, so we were fairly certain that such a departure would take place, and it did, eventually, just as the sun was setting. We started a fire, cooked dinner, and climbed into our tents.
Waking up in a tent with headlights coming straight at you and the high-pitched squeal of an ATV drawing louder is perhaps one of the most unsettling ways of waking I can imagine. I might have preferred the roar of an attacking Rhinoceros. It was actually Kirsten who woke me up to this intense moment, and we literally had to shout to hear each other. Jeremy was awake, as well, and when we hurriedly got out of the tents, we found that the ATV's were driving right at us and turning away at the last moment on their way to the bedrock of the creek. It was midnight. They'd convene somewhere out there, discuss the fact that there's no party here as they'd believed there to be, and drove back out, again just missing our tents. These were different ATV'ers, much younger than the earlier party that I figured was composed mostly of shell-shocked Vietnam vets. One of them even clipped one of our tent guywires on the way out, creating a good "thung-g-g-g."
Jeremy moved the Jeep around to prevent a drunk ATV'er from driving into our tent, and we sat there on the hood, miles deep into the woods, at least an hour's drive to the nearest motel, exhausted, as the ATV's kept coming and going. After they finally stopped for a spell, we set a time of 1 AM, deciding that unless they stopped coming and going by that time, we'd break camp and drive out. 1 AM came, and it was quiet. We climbed back in our tents, exhausted, behind the protection of Jeremy's bright yellow Wrangler.
I believe that the rest of the night was peaceful. We woke up early as the sun was rising. Kirsten and I were doing Yoga at the time, and so Jeremy joined us for some poses on the rocks above the waterfall. We hung out and laughed at the situation while cooking breakfast, knowing that the ATV's would be back as soon as they slept off their hangovers and saddled up. But, before any of our morning truly began, I woke up alone and walked over to the bedrock where the rodeo had taken place. There was a man there, trash can in hand, picking up the hundreds of beer cans that had been left by the ATV army. I chatted with him a bit, discussing the travesty of yesterday's activites, wondering when they'd be back. He was very disturbed by the group's disrespect. I returned to our tents and told Kirsten and Jeremy that there was, in fact, another camper here who is interested in treating this beautiful place as it should be treated, someone who would prefer to hear the roar of Wonderfalls rather than the roar of the ATV's. Kirsten and Jeremy glanced over at the man, who was on his second trash bag, and, together, said, "Dude, that's Buttcrack!" Sure enough, after a few beers, there he was, pumping his fist in the air. "Git 'r Dun!!!!!"
Believe it or not, we decided to stick it out and camp the rest of the weekend after moving our camp to an area below the falls. The ATV's didn't go down there, and the roar of Wonderfalls drowned out the noise for the most part.
On Monday, as we were driving out of the forest, we came across the two kids Kirsten and I had seen at the truck stop. They were walking the trail to the campsites, and they looked dazed. This was somewhat normal, given the weekend's activities, but walking very far wasn't in anybody's intersts, from what we had experienced. So, we stopped and asked if they were okay. "Well, we rolled the Blazer," one told us. Sure enough, the two of them had been driving the trail and went off to the side, rolling several times down the slope. We gasped, asking if they needed a ride out to get medical attention. "Naw, we called my Dad and he's gonna come get us. We're gonna go have a couple more beers till he comes."
I went back to Wonderfalls yesterday, the first time in the two-and-a-half years since this event. It was a Thursday afternoon in January, and my friend Rob and I were driving back to Morgantown from paddling the Cheat River. We knew that the creek would have enough water to paddle the falls, though neither of us has the skills for that, but we wanted to see it. There was nobody there, and it was like a different place. It is hard to find a place as beautiful, and I've been spending a lot of time looking. Ice coated all of the rocks within the range of the waterfall's spray.
I also wanted to test out my fairly new Subaru Forester, which made it to the falls just fine. I, however, was a shaken mess of nerves driving most of the trail, but I'm happy to report the car is just very muddy, but fine.
Git' r Dun.
Before Jeremy or the Groves arrived, in perhaps a bit of foreshadowing, Kirsten and I sat in the parking lot of the truck stop as a beat-up, muddy Chevy Blazer pulled up next to us and two party-worn kids jumped out. We chatted with them for a minute, discovering that they had just returned from our destination in order to stock up. Their "list" consisted of far more beer than two humans can consume and several Subway sandwiches. Nice guys, and it wouldn't be the last time we would see them.
The plan was neither complex nor ambitious. We're just camping, and we're not even packing gear in to the site. But, only signficantly equipped 4WD vehicles can actually drive to the falls, though any car can make it to within a mile to Rockville, WV, if its owner is willing to drive the backroad. Rockville is not a town. In fact, nobody lives there and it doesn't look like anybody has lived there in the recent past. It just has a bridge over the Big Sandy and a lot of rocks in the creek there and the USGS had to give the place a name when it set up a streamflow gauging station there, I guess.
After a few miles of the shoddily maintained backroads, Jeremy instructed us to park the Civic (our '98 DX Hatchback that went where no '98 DX Hatchback had ever gone before succumbing to the VA emissions regulation in April 2006 . . . it took us a whopping 205,000 miles in that time). Gear and passengers of the Civic (that's me, Kirsten, our dog, Harrison, and our stuff) were transfered to the two Jeeps, and we continued.
Continuing, in this case, consisted of twisting the Jeeps through terrain choked with large rocks, trees, and holes. In yet another bit of foreshadowing, a team of ATV's zipped passed us as we trodded on at one point. The crux move in the journey came when all of the non-driving Jeepgoers refused to stay in the vehicles for a dogleg down into a ravine, an uphill turn when in the bottom of the ravine, and back up out of the ravine. The rear ends of the Jeeps swung at least 4 - 6 feet as each dropped in to the ravine and made the right turn into the gradient of the slope, stopping hearts.
For about 30 minutes, the Jeeps labored along what, at some point, was probably a fairly clear passage into a clearcut forest. That was arguably decades ago, as the larger of the trees around which Jeremy and Matt drove were 2 feet in diameter. Jonah said to us on the 2-way radio we'd brought, "Mommy is scared of the road." "How do you like it, Jonah?" "This is fun! It's bumpy!"
As we approached the camping area, we started to hear the roar. It would take us about 10 minutes or so before we realized that what we thought was our beautiful destination waterfall was, in fact, an army of at least 40 ATV's. The choice activities were donuts in an ankle deep pool of the creek, thereby creating a muddy geyser 30 feet high, and lots and lots of drinking the finest beer in two counties (Natural Light, I believe, it was). A man with one arm ATV'ed past us while sipping, and waved, welcoming us.
The next several hours were spent trying to ignore the group. They were loud, they ran our beautiful waterfall muddy brown, they exploded dynamite, and they threw their cans wherever they landed. In the middle of the ankle deep pool, a man we eventually named "Buttcrack" stood with one hand hooked around a can of beer, the other fisted, pumping in the air. It was Buttcrack, the name begotten from the low hang of his shorts, who would introduce us to the true meaning of "Git 'r Dun!" The name "Buttcrack" could have easily been "Beer Belly," but his namesake got more severe as the beer flowed, so we stuck with it. He repeatly shouted the phrase, "Git 'r Dun!", while his comrades would do donuts around him, sometime as many as 4 or more geysers spouting around him. In a way, it was like he was the center of a Vegas act, and should have been lip synching AC/DC. The act, in this case, came with the unmuffled sound of several ATVs at about 6500 rpms.
The Groves left after a few hours of jumping off the waterfall and swimming about the rocks, and we drove behind them to make sure they got out okay. Jeremy, Kirsten, and I then drove back in with the two dogs, looking forward to the ATV group's departure. There was very little camping gear scattered about, so we were fairly certain that such a departure would take place, and it did, eventually, just as the sun was setting. We started a fire, cooked dinner, and climbed into our tents.
Waking up in a tent with headlights coming straight at you and the high-pitched squeal of an ATV drawing louder is perhaps one of the most unsettling ways of waking I can imagine. I might have preferred the roar of an attacking Rhinoceros. It was actually Kirsten who woke me up to this intense moment, and we literally had to shout to hear each other. Jeremy was awake, as well, and when we hurriedly got out of the tents, we found that the ATV's were driving right at us and turning away at the last moment on their way to the bedrock of the creek. It was midnight. They'd convene somewhere out there, discuss the fact that there's no party here as they'd believed there to be, and drove back out, again just missing our tents. These were different ATV'ers, much younger than the earlier party that I figured was composed mostly of shell-shocked Vietnam vets. One of them even clipped one of our tent guywires on the way out, creating a good "thung-g-g-g."
Jeremy moved the Jeep around to prevent a drunk ATV'er from driving into our tent, and we sat there on the hood, miles deep into the woods, at least an hour's drive to the nearest motel, exhausted, as the ATV's kept coming and going. After they finally stopped for a spell, we set a time of 1 AM, deciding that unless they stopped coming and going by that time, we'd break camp and drive out. 1 AM came, and it was quiet. We climbed back in our tents, exhausted, behind the protection of Jeremy's bright yellow Wrangler.
I believe that the rest of the night was peaceful. We woke up early as the sun was rising. Kirsten and I were doing Yoga at the time, and so Jeremy joined us for some poses on the rocks above the waterfall. We hung out and laughed at the situation while cooking breakfast, knowing that the ATV's would be back as soon as they slept off their hangovers and saddled up. But, before any of our morning truly began, I woke up alone and walked over to the bedrock where the rodeo had taken place. There was a man there, trash can in hand, picking up the hundreds of beer cans that had been left by the ATV army. I chatted with him a bit, discussing the travesty of yesterday's activites, wondering when they'd be back. He was very disturbed by the group's disrespect. I returned to our tents and told Kirsten and Jeremy that there was, in fact, another camper here who is interested in treating this beautiful place as it should be treated, someone who would prefer to hear the roar of Wonderfalls rather than the roar of the ATV's. Kirsten and Jeremy glanced over at the man, who was on his second trash bag, and, together, said, "Dude, that's Buttcrack!" Sure enough, after a few beers, there he was, pumping his fist in the air. "Git 'r Dun!!!!!"
Believe it or not, we decided to stick it out and camp the rest of the weekend after moving our camp to an area below the falls. The ATV's didn't go down there, and the roar of Wonderfalls drowned out the noise for the most part.
On Monday, as we were driving out of the forest, we came across the two kids Kirsten and I had seen at the truck stop. They were walking the trail to the campsites, and they looked dazed. This was somewhat normal, given the weekend's activities, but walking very far wasn't in anybody's intersts, from what we had experienced. So, we stopped and asked if they were okay. "Well, we rolled the Blazer," one told us. Sure enough, the two of them had been driving the trail and went off to the side, rolling several times down the slope. We gasped, asking if they needed a ride out to get medical attention. "Naw, we called my Dad and he's gonna come get us. We're gonna go have a couple more beers till he comes."
I went back to Wonderfalls yesterday, the first time in the two-and-a-half years since this event. It was a Thursday afternoon in January, and my friend Rob and I were driving back to Morgantown from paddling the Cheat River. We knew that the creek would have enough water to paddle the falls, though neither of us has the skills for that, but we wanted to see it. There was nobody there, and it was like a different place. It is hard to find a place as beautiful, and I've been spending a lot of time looking. Ice coated all of the rocks within the range of the waterfall's spray.
I also wanted to test out my fairly new Subaru Forester, which made it to the falls just fine. I, however, was a shaken mess of nerves driving most of the trail, but I'm happy to report the car is just very muddy, but fine.
Git' r Dun.
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