West Virginia Trip, 2025, Beartown and Home

My foot was bothering me, so this was a fairly low-key day as far as hiking went. But it was an enjoyable day, all the same.

First up was Beartown State Park. Beartown is a small day-use park that features large rock formations of the Pottsville sandstone (locally known as Droop). The park features a half-mile boardwalk that winds through large boulders covered with moss and lichen and erosional cavities. It was hard to get pictures that really show the unique beauty and whimsical feel of the park. But we tried just the same.

The road into Beartown State Park. We had another beautiful day of blue skies and no rain.

The area was named Beartown because early settlers thought it had many good dens for bears among the rocks.

Many of the rocks had ferns growing along the edges, appropriately named fringe ferns.

The boardwalk went up, over, and down between the crevices.

They said some of the lichens growing on the rocks were over 100 years old.

We visited a few other places as we wandered around the area.

In Hillsboro, we saw the birthplace of Pearl Buck. Unfortunately, they closed early, so we didn't get to view the house or museum.

Next, we tried to visit the Pocahontas County Museum. It was also closed when it should have been opened. The people at the visitor's center said there had been an illness in the family of the volunteer who runs the museum.

We explored the small town of Marlinton, the county seat of Pocahontas County, WV.

On the other side of the building was a mosaic of tiles made by people in the community. (The tiles were ~ 8x8")

Then it was back to our condo for leftover spaghetti and a couple of mystery books. The next morning, we packed up (after we finished our books. Didn't want to be left hanging with the "who dun it") and headed home.

On the way home, we stopped at Seneca Rocks State Park. They always impress. 

Currently, we're home, have done our laundry, and have most of our things put away. Now it's back to the realities of everyday living, like mowing grass and paying bills. But we had a wonderful time on our little getaway. 

Until next time...

West Virginia Trip, 2025, Riding the Rails

That's the old Cass Company Store behind the train.

Ever since we were children, Ward and I have heard about the Cass Scenic Railroad (CSR) and wanted to ride it. We finally made that happen today. A few years ago, we visited the historic town of Cass, but unfortunately, the train was not running at the time.

Cass was founded in 1901 as a company town for the West Virginia Spruce Lumber Company. At the same time, work on the railroad to haul out the lumber began. The company expanded and changed hands numerous times before closing in 1960. The state of West Virginia acquired the area and turned it into a state park, and the first scenic ride took place in 1963.

They converted old lumber cars into passenger cars.

Since the train was built for hauling heavy loads up and down steep grades, and not speed, our trip up the mountain was slow. But that gave us plenty of time to enjoy the scenery around us. I was cold riding in the breezy open cars with the temperatures in the 40s. I made full use of my four layers of clothing. We sat at the back of the train and got to watch in detail what was involved in the two switchbacks we made up and back.

From here, the train climbed a 9% grade to our station stop at Whittier Meadows.
2 % grade is the max for normal trains. That shows how powerful our Shay Engine #5 was.

The train lineman was getting ready for a switchback.

There were six cars on our trip.

At the top, there was an abandoned saw mill with some exhibits.

Comments by Ward:

The coal-powered steam engines used today by CSR are the same as used by the lumber company 100+ years ago. They are named "Shay" locomotives after the inventor, Ephraim Shay. 

Unlike typical locomotives, Shays use a drive shaft and geared wheels (Wikipedia entry). This allowed the Shays to have greater pulling power, albeit less speed. This was a good trade-off for jobs like lumbering on steep hillsides.

This is all really interesting if you are a train nerd.

After our train ride, we hiked a couple of miles along the Greenbrier River Trail. 

The rail trail begins in Cass and goes for 77 miles to North Caldwell, WV.

The trail is paved with crushed limestone and is wheelchair accessible.
It's used for hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, and horseback riding.

The scenery along the way did not disappoint.

We went back to our condo and cooked spaghetti for supper,
and Ward worked on another puzzle.

Until next time...

WV Trip, 2025, Highland Scenic Highway

 The fog finally lifted, and we were off to drive the Highland Scenic Highway. The Highland Scenic Highway is a 43-mile byway through the Monongahela National Forest. It goes through the Allegheny Mountains, and the highway reaches 4500' at one point. It has several outlooks and numerous trails off of it.

I lost count, but we did at least 5 hikes in the forest from the highway. None were very long, ranging from a couple of miles to 1/4 mile, but I garnered a good step count for the day. We were very pleased with the trails as they were well-maintained, along with everything else along the highway.

We saw a range of colors on the hillsides. Some were filled with bare trees, and others were in a blaze of glory. And when the elevation got above 4000', we saw mostly red spruce (which is green).

We were at 4100 feet here, where we noticed a change in vegetation to almost all spruce.

This was at a lower elevation.

And in between the two, most of the trees were bare.

Below are more stops from our day.

Cranberry Glades are bogs with plants leftover from the last ice age. Many species
found here are usually found much further north in the Arctic tundra area.

We walked the boardwalk through the Glades and heard several
different kinds of birds*, as well as saw lots of cranberry plants.

The Cranberry Mountain Nature Center was closed due to the government shutdown, but we were still able to walk two different interpretive nature trails. One of them had signs for the visually impaired. 

This stop had a trail to three different waterfalls,
 cleverly named Lower, Middle, and Upper Falls.

The Lower Falls

The Middle Falls (The Upper Falls were hidden behind vegetation, so no picture.)

There were 380 steps down to the Lower Falls.

We had lunch along the Williams River Overlook Trail.

The last stop of the day was the Honeycomb Rocks Trail. The pattern in this boulder was formed from erosion-resistant hematite being deposited along cracks in the sandstone. Differential weathering left the hematite and removed the sandstone.

Until next time...

And a bonus picture of pretty leaves, just because.

* The wonderful Merlin app from the Cornell Ornithology Lab identified six different birds in the Cranberry Glades over just a few minutes: American Robin, Dark-eyed Junco, Black-capped Chickadee, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Song Sparrow, and Yellow-rumped Warbler.

West Virginia Trip, Foggy

 

Our first stop was at Green Ridge State Park in Maryland.
You can see the leaves are just starting to change.

Good morning. I'm in Snowshoe, WV, waiting for the fog to burn off. It rolled in last night and hasn't lifted yet this morning. It's almost 10 am and still too foggy to drive. However, we don't have to do anything on a schedule today, so we can wait to explore the mountains.

On our drive yesterday, we took mostly backroads. There was very little traffic and we had some beautiful scenery along the way. The leaf situation was a mixed bag. Some hillsides were filled with mostly bare trees while others were a mix of green and orange. I am curious what we will see today. 

The oak trees were showing their color in Keyser, WV.
This is the hillside opposite from where we ate lunch.

We are staying in a condo at a small ski resort. The condo is small and nicely appointed--meaning it is decorated for pictures, but not for practicality. We have rearranged things to make it work for us. Now when I say resort, what I mean is there are a lot of amenities such as exercise room, restaurants, play areas, etc., but none of them are open now because it's not ski season. However, that means we got a good rate for our room.

We are also in the Quiet Zone for the Greenbank Observatory, a complex filled with large radio telescopes which are talking to the universe. Any kind of radio waves are not permitted because of the interference they can cause. That means that our cell phones do not work at all. However, we are far enough away that we do have Wifi here. (Actually, Ward gave me a long and complicated explanation about WiFi transmission barriers, but I zoned out in the middle of the explanation.) If they're open, we hope to visit Greenbank later in the week. More about it then.

We brought food for most of our meals and I'm glad we did. So far, it looks like we are an hour away from a regular grocery store and the convenience stores we have seen have been closed because it's not ski season. One of the goals for today is to find sweetener for Ward's coffee. So far, that's the only thing we have found that we have forgotten.

Ward filled his time this morning by working a 500 puzzle. Yes, he is fast.

I just saw that I can now see out the window. The fog is lifting. However, the mountains are still shrouded, so we'll wait a little longer. In the meantime, it's time to start making our peanut butter sandwiches for the day.

Until next time...

On the Road Again

All of the leaves are off the apple tree, but blooms have replaced them. I think it's a little confused.

 It's been a couple of cold, wet, and windy days. But tomorrow, it should clear up, just in time for Ward and me to go to the mountains of West Virginia for a few days. The weather there is predicted to be dry and cool.  And if the rain and wind haven't prematurely brought down most of the leaves, we hope to see some fall color. We shall see. The drought in the area has caused the leaves to change earlier than they do in most years.

If the circumstances work out, I will do a travelogue during the trip. If not, I'll tell you about it when we get back. 

Until next time...