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.