Solo on- and off-loading of my bike with my current setup represented a major unknown. Home practice would require forethought and planning and not a vague whisper of either went into this trip. 45 years have passed since my decrepit ol' azz owned a mosickle light enough to throw around and for some reason I ain't near as limber.
After a 5 year hiatus, I have been trying to go camping for over a month and each time the sky dampened plans. Wrapping up a 2 1/2-day driveway repair, I took a quick noon time glance to find an actual sunshine forecast. A camp-n-ride plan into the heart of Monongahela National Forest hatched.
In spite of my strong distaste for car camping, Lil Snowflake got the nod. My truck was loaded with camping gear but I ran out of steam and bike prep was postponed.
Next morning, readying the bike took longer than expected so the whole early start thing didn't pan out. A noon campground arrival was the best I could hope for. Driving the long way around to get to the short way into the campground, found me on a forest service road freshly graded, not packed down and still swimming in mud because it rained after the grader finished. I asked myself if I really wanted to slog 3 miles in and out over the next two days on my new bike; and promptly turned around. I had chosen the wrong end of Williams River Road to make camp.
Heading upstream and scouting numerous dispersed riverside campsites evolved into a major undertaking. An individual site had to meet three criteria; mud not up to my ahem. Second, a place to back the truck in to offload my bike, nothing major required, just a little elevation advantage to level my ramps a bit to help with traction. And third, hammock hanging trees. My kit allows going to ground, I just don't want to because I'd rather sleep than toss about all night. Not hanging in a million acres of forest is beyond ludicrous.
However a bajillion potential trees quickly becomes a precious few, because, thankfully, the Forest Service jealously guards this absolute jewel of the Mon by restricting camping to developed campsites. Their cautious approach is the result of hard historical lessons… https://restoreredspruce.org/2012/05/25 ... irginia/3/
With 30 sites from which to choose, I was sure finding a site meeting spec would be a piece of cake. Passing on 29 sites, yep, I drove the 30-mile length of the Williams River from where it is 75 yards wide to where it is a babbling brook, with no luck, I began formulating Plan B and nearly bypassed the last site positioned off the main now gravel road on a bench along a spur of an old abandoned logging road. Figuring 'what the hell is one more?', up the spur I went.
Hmmm...comparably dry, trees a plenty and the slightest elevation advantage along the slope where the spur leaves the main road. It'll do!! It'll do!! Plus, I will have the place to myself. My very own personal wilderness camp for the next two days! There were only two other mid-week campers on the river and I was miles above them and separated by the Highland Scenic Highway.
By 3:00 pm
camp was set and my azz was whipped. I opted to gather wet fire tv materials and cook an early supper instead of going riding. Riding day one of three shot to hell.Why do I hate car camping? If I were hauling my home on the bike, I would have ridden dirt through the mountains to get to camp instead of piddling all day in a cage looking for a spot. Going in the wrong end would have meant bonus miles. Though it was a damn fine day for a drive, it was a far cry from a day spent riding [Note to future me – that crap's got to change!!]
About 6 that evening I managed a whole 20-mile ride up and back to the Highland Scenic Highway for a cell signal to let Spkldoe know I still breathed. Back at camp, a wet wet fuel 'gnat smoke' was initiated while I kicked back with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and communed with the sounds of silence.
Well, except for my personal babbling trickle white noise generator until overtaken by sleep.
Day Two
On my feet kind of early; a pot or two was brewed as I waited for first light. Suited up and headed out. First stop. Day Run Campground oasis for liquid allotment replenishment. Then onward retracing the entire length of the river...wrong end again…to Upperglade to fuel lil' Snowflake and to replace the carefully bagged but left behind lunch. Did I mention that I hate car camping?
Fifteen miles in from Bolair at the confluence of the Three Forks of Gauley, I find this. Horseshit! Wrong end!!
After regrouping, I got busy mentally rerouting but what I was reading on the surrounding signage began to sink in.
It absolutely chaps my azz that my tax dollars help support a stream improvement project but Weyerhauser restricts access then leases the land for more profit.
Not only did the signage finalize my reroute but precipitated my jaw to assume a determined set. "I know where the other end is you bastards and that's federal land. Shaking my fist in the air for dramatic flair
, "I will not be denied my 3-forks experience you SOB's!", I said very much aloud to no one.Re-tracking to Bolair and heading north, any and all unkind thoughts of damned lockers of gates left my mind because I was soon immersed in excellent riding and the non-stop postcard countryside of the Elk River Valley.
Several miles later, even though it was a bit early, I was certain that my favorite lunch spot on the Elk, Whittaker Falls, had been missing me. But this pair of Hooded Mergansers had not, so they shoved off to let the current carry them downstream to their next fishing hole. I'm here to tell ya, this reroute business…some tough duty!
75 paved miles and including a petrol stop at the toe of Snowshoe later, Lil Snowflake was hauling me along the top of Gauley Mountain above the damned gate lockers lease. The road follows a 1950s era steam shovel days strip mine bench, complete with strip ponds and high wall where the extent of reclamation was the planting of non-native Red Pine. The forest service has sold the now mature pulp trees to keep the Charmin coming.
Nope. No brush slapping today. Riding solo with no one knowing more than I was riding in the head of the Gauley, it was turn around time.
As I was coming back out, a pickup-driving gent wearing a chartreuse t-shirt waved as he came through the intersection that lies just up the hill from the USFS/Weyerhauser boundary. "Hmmnnn, that gent works for a contractor on the timber company side and he just came through the upper gate. I wonder if he locked it?
I tried to be good Zilla, honest, I really did…for all of a millisecond. But then, well then that effing "Cooperative Stream Enhancement Project" sign popped into my head…screw em!…and I headed for the gate.
Unlocked! Out Slab Camp ridge I went. A dead end. When the local SXSs make a roundabout there is a reason. I followed suit.
Continuing down the North Fork.
I planned to circle back up the Middle Fork and to regain Federal land. Running into a great long stretch of graded today unpacked but dryish timber road, my focus was on running in the grader track as it was the only semi-solid surface available.
Somewhere I bypassed the Middle Fork road back to the top. I remember only one intersection where it was plainly evident the grader was at that very moment still working. Nope, not that way. The third fork, the South Fork has a separate locked gate having been seen on my wrong end morning foray.
I kept running that grader track downstream and the next thing I know, I round a bend and there is the lower gate standing wide open! It took a hundred miles but I got my Three Forks experience! "Choo choo you gate locking jackasses!!! Elated, but not stupid, I did NOT stop to document the open gate. Getting while the getting was good! seemed prudent.
Sooo, looping back to Upperglade, I was now on the…wrong end…of the Williams River, 30 miles downstream from camp.
I'll save for a campfire the tale of the middle of the night tete-a-tete with the bear hunters and dogs.
Day three ride was supposed to be an easy loop off the mountain to US219, north to Edray and back to the truck. Packed up camp while the gnawing uncertainty of an inaugural solo loading of the bike loomed large. I decided on a test run, positioned the truck and ramps, thumbed the starter and walked Lil Snowflake right into her wheel chock. "Slick, I says to myself. Now do you have the balls to risk the ramps twice more." Given that yesterday's Three Forks triumph was in my pocket, I wimped and called it good. Strapped the bike in, double checked the campsite and headed for the Scenic Highway. A brief hiatus to explore Summit Lake camping areas in case a Plan B was ever needed and, of course, to take a look at the lake made for a nice distraction on my way home.
Highland Scenic Highway WV150
Lessons learned:
I have a genuine dislike of car camping. Too much ride time spent caging.
Camping midweek rocks!
It is possible to camp without libations…who knew!?
In camp bear country cooking is best limited to boiling water meals; especially when sleeping in a bear burrito!!!
A little but not a lot of elevation of the aft ends of the ramps can make pickup loading and unloading of the KLX very doable.
No camper has ever said, I brought too much fuel, water, tea or toilet paper.
On a related note, if car camping, don't forget your shovel. Digging catholes with a stick in a rock bar sucks!
Don't ever assume that since you had a wilderness to yourself the first night that history will repeat itself, especially in bear dog training season. A campfire tale waiting to be told…
