A trip to Mike's spawning grounds, ole West Verginie yielded incredible views from the North Fork Mountain Trail, running 24 miles mostly along a sandstone ridgeline, but also through hollows and valleys. The North Fork Mountain area is part of the Seneca Rocks Unit of Monongahela National Forest in the Potomac Ranger District and as its name suggests, gives the hiker a view of the snaking North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River. The trail is gorgeous but almost completely devoid of a combination of hydrogen and oxygen molecules that our bodies needed to survive so we had to bring a lot of water which made for super heavy packs. The trail also gave us a wonderful birds-eye view of the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area, one of our most favorite places to camp and a favorite of Mike's to paint.
We connected to North Fork Mountain's ridgeline just before dusk, eating our dinner over a sweeping vista of West Virginia's rolling moutains and rocky faces. The katydid chorus came out early and blasted us all night long. Then, a strange company of curmudgeonly grizzled beings approached our tent from all directions. Slowly, they came closer, and in Lisa's head, the owners of the grumpy sounds outside our tent belonged to, first, deer, then bear with hooves, then centaurs led by satyrs. But they were none other than a herd of feral goats, munching grasses and butting heads against fallen trees and each other - we had unwittingly set up camp in their favorite grazing grounds along the ridge, and they would continuously approach the tent, eating of course, and flee quickly when arriving too close, simply to repeat this routine all night. The next morning, we tromped along through blueberry and huckleberry bushes that were already yielding berries because of the elevation. A quick handful here or there stained our fingers and mouths as we walked and gorged ourselves like our visitors from the night before. We did a loop of the trail, starting at Redman Run trail and following the North Fork Trail to its Northern terminus ( Mike to Check). On our way back, we followed CO28/11, also known as Forest Road 79. Although road hiking isn't normally something we plan for, we hoped to get glimpses of West Virginia countryside and private land. Our hopes were well founded because it seemed like we had traveled back in time. Countryside vignettes of old barns, ancient family cemeteries, horses grazing in pastures, sun glinting off wheat fields and old fences running far into the distance hid evidence of a modern world, save for the telephone lines, Milwaukee's Best beer cans, broken down cars from the 50's,60's,70's, and 80's, tires in the ditch, and the road sponsored by the Allegheny Bear Hunters Association.
On the way back to Maryland, we stopped at Seneca Rocks, a holy place for the Seneca Indians and also a holy place for hippy rock climbers (it's one of the rock climbing meccas of the east). We watched an educational video about the site in the National Park's educational center that told us of the very hilarious story, likely made up by white men to give an air of noble savage romance (a genera known to many curators of Native Arts - shout out to Sue) to the location. The legend is about "The Betrothal of Princess Snowbird" and it's even written on a historical plaque by a gas station. The legend goes that Chief Bald Eagles daughter, the "Princess" (note Native American's didn't have princesses because they did not operate under a feudal system of government)Snowbird declared that any Indian brave that followed her to the top of Seneca Rocks would have her hand in marriage. The video shows Snowbird, short deer-hide skirt waving in the wind, ascending the ridge top followed by about five braves all staring up her skirt. She reaches the top and pulls a handsome, strapping young man up with her and they live happily ever after. CHEESE CITY. It's the most "Walt Disney" that West Virginia will ever be.
West Virginia, throughout its history as a state, has always been the target of outside interests, especially in exploiting its natural resources. Coal and timber, at the expense of folks' lives, have always been the two big ones. By the beginning of the twentieth century something like 95% of West Virginia's old growth forests had been clear cut down to their stumps leaving behind a dry expanse that would ignite in forest (or forestless) fires, burning mountains down to their bedrock at times. The barren hills, now devoid of any rain barrier all the way down to riparian watersides in the valleys caused major flooding -- the water simply poured off the mountains all over the east. The WPA CCC group, along with the budding National Park and Forest systems eventually realized the desperate need to conserve the land and Monongahela National Forest became a reality in 1920. The forest is an example of a major turnaround in preservation within the eastern United States. This continues even today as Monongahela National Forest's 910,155 acres absorbed 37,000 new acres of designated wilderness within its boundaries as a result of the Obama administration signing into law the landmark Wild and Scenic Rivers Bill of 2009.
Clear cutting mountaintops in the early 1900s - courtesy of Seneca Rocks Discovery Center.
Removing the timber from the hills - courtesy of Seneca Rocks Discovery Center.
Flooding in Pittsburgh due to clear cutting and resulting runoff - courtesy of Seneca Rocks Discovery Center.
Sunset along North Fork Trail
