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32ozgatorade
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« on: May 27, 2008, 11:32:07 AM » |
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Camped Thursday night off of route 92 9 miles south of Watoga State Park. Friday took cars into Watoga States Park and shuttled north to Durbin WVa.
Hiked south through Durbin which is to the Allegheny Trail what Damascus is to the AT. Pretty neat little town. A lot of old RR cars etc were on the tracks. What followed on Friday was a bunch of ups and downs. Not a lot of views as the trees now have leaves on them. We did pass the National Radio Astronomy Observatory which was pretty neat (even though that too was partially obscured by trees). After 15.8 miles of ups and downs, we camped three miles north of Cass WVa. Friday was probably the most strenuous day, because although the elevation gains and losses weren's significant, there was so many of them.
Saturday we hiked into Cass. For those who don't know, Cass was once a huge sawmill town. The company who owned the sawmill owned the town. The state bought the sawmill and houses and eventually shut the mill down. They allowed the residents to live in the houses and paid their utilities for awhile. A few years back, after they stopped paying for the residents to live there, the mill was torched. Now it is basically just a steam RR tourist place You can rent the houses (the state still owns them) and in the summer ride the trains, in the winter you can ski. (this history may not be EXACTLY right, but you get the drift).
If you are ever there, go to the general store/resteraunt where a relatively inexpensive breakfast can be had. We sat outside for a while Saturday morning, and the residents were very friendly.
One of the gentlemen on the hike actually drives 300 miles round trip every weekend to work on the train engines there, so we got an 'exclusive guided tour'. After lingering there for a couple hours we left Cass via the Greenbriar River Trail, a relatively flat trail that is a full 80 miles long.
13 miles into the hike we came to an abandoned fire tower, with a sign saying climb at your own risk. While my pictures won't do it justice, let's just say it wasn't the most comfortable feeling going up. Wooden stairs were missing or broken in two, but we proceeded up. The view, well there wasn't one. The trees were higher then the tower. A mile and half later we arrived at a shelter. (Yes they are starting to build shelters on the Allegheny Trail)). Unfortunatley the floor was uneven stone slabs, which didn't make for a very comfortable night. So after 14.5 miles we settled down, played some cards and crashed. (there was a very good spring here as well)
Sunday was by far the most interesting day. The trail which had been fairly well marked became at times hard to follow. Hiking this trail is different then most I have experienced in that within a mile you can hike up 1000 ft and back down with absolutely no level ground in between. This was the case Sunday morning. The descent to Rt 28 was unbelievable as we literally were walking down the side of a mountain on a trail about 4 inches wide. We got to 28 and turned onto 39, reaching the town of Huntersville at 1:30, 14 miles into our hike.
There we came to an Oasis. A Chevron station that is hiker friendly. Water around the side, clean restrooms, and plenty of ice Cream and goodies... Freindly people stopped and talked to us as we sat there cooking our 'dinner'. We took our leave at 3:00 and after 2 miles of flat hiking started another one of those 1000 ft elevation gains in about a half of a mile. 6 miles after leaving the Chevron station we set up camp. Total distance 20.1 miles, leaving 10 for Monday.
Monday was more of the same. Some ups and some downs. The best views were on an old USFS road, unfortunately by then my batteries were dead. We arrived back at the car at 11:15 after 10 miles, and drove to White Sulphur Springs just in time to be in the tail end of their Memorial Day Parade. Stuffed my face at Hardy's and headed back to VA were pizza and Yeungling awaited.
For anyone interested in hiking any of these sections I would recommend the part around Cass. The history there was neat. The trail itself is very seldom used. The amount of through hikers each year is probably under 12, according to what I was told. The lastest date in the log book at the one trail head was April 23. We saw 3 runners, one day hikes and one mountain biker in 60 miles of trail. The trail, while nicely marked around Cass is poorly marked in some places. Also, a lot of blowdowns. It was however a great hike in terms of excercise and sites, as there were flowers, butterflies and birds. There were a few views although not too many like you see in VA. For the 60 miles that we hiked there were enough water supply points so we didn't have to weigh ourselves down with too much water. Most of the time we didn't even have to filter.
Pictures to follow.
I hope you all had as nice a weekend as I did...
'32oz
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