A HIKERS JOURNAL
The Dolly Sods
Terence Kiernan
Copyright 2011 by Terence Kiernan. All rights reserved.
Published by Terence Kiernan at Smashwords
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Dolly Sods Wilderness Hike October 3-6, 2001
The Dolly Sods Wilderness area is located in Northeast West Virginia and is a part of the Monongahela National park. It is a high plateau located between the Allegheny and the Cabin Mountains. This high elevation contains features of flora that are normally only found in forests much further north. Hemlock, spruce, and many types of birch trees are dominant in this area as are blueberry bushes and cranberry bogs.
Some of the unique features of the Dolly Sods were created by man in the early twentieth century. Paths for narrow gauge railways were cut into the mountains and large stands of spruce were logged extensively. When the cutting was done, the tracks were pulled up leaving rocky trails that lace the area. As the forests began to recover, forest fires swept through the region resulting in a stunted landscape that was open to the growth of small brush like the blueberry bushes.
The Dolly Sods is an area I first hiked twenty-six years ago as a novice. I went there in the spring when the creeks were full and wading them was a challenge. It is difficult to remember the exact lay of the land from so long ago, but my hope in the 2001 hike was to find the original hike and repeat it. As it turned out, I covered the original hike and quite a bit more.
I began by planning the hike from maps and Internet information. I knew there was a campsite at the trailhead and finding this would establish my starting point. From there I would descend to Red Creek. This was pretty much the extent of my memories of the previous hike. Not much to go on but, as it turned out, enough. I was soon to learn that the forest road that enters the Dolly Sods eventually runs the Eastern ridge north and south. Within two miles of the northern end of the road was the Red Creek campground. This campground is the starting point of a trail named Blackbird Knob Trail. This trail runs 2.2 miles to a junction at Red Creek with the Red Creek Trail. There are several trailheads that lead into the Sods, but this trailhead at Red Creek Campground was obviously the one I had used twenty-six years ago and would be the one I used for this trip.
The planned hike was to start at Red Creek Campground on the Blackbird Knob Trail and proceed down into the Sods to hook up with Red Creek Trail. A short southern hike would take me to the junction of the Breathed Mountain Trail. From here I would head northwest across Breathed Mountain until the trail terminated at the Big Stone Coal Trail. The Big Stone Coal runs south down the spine of Breathed Mountain, a good part of it over the remains of an old rail bed. A little more then halfway down this trail I would find the junction of the Dunkenbarger Trail which heads west across the Coal Knob Plateau through mostly spruce and rhododendron. The Dunkenbarger terminates into the Little Stone Coal Trail. From here, the Little Stone Coal Trail follows and old wagon road down a steep grade through hardwoods of maple, birch, ash and poplar trees. This trail would end at Red Creek and after a short portage across, I would find the Red Creek Trail. From here I would head north and after a few miles, with luck, end up where I had started at the junction of the Red Creek and the Blackbird Knob Trails.
I estimated this hike to be about seventeen miles long. I planned on allowing myself two and a half days to cover it. Any hiker reading this may give a chuckle and wonder if the time I allowed for the hike was based on what I felt it would take for a wheelchair to cover the distance. I do not care. It’s my hike, and I have my pace. Others could easily eat seventeen miles in a single day. I want to enjoy this hike and I realized that there would be parts of the walk that were going to be hard for me. Getting through the hard parts requires time and frequent stops. Finally, I looked forward to these walks and spent a good amount of time planning them. Sadly, I know the trip would be over all too soon, so why push it?
I began the trip Wednesday morning, October 3, 2001. I left out of Jacksonville at 3:30 in the morning, heading north on I-95. I passed Savannah while it was still dark. Near Charleston, I turned west on I-26. While it was still early in the morning, I passed Columbia and picked up I-77 North. From here I traveled through Charlotte, NC and by noon I had entered Virginia. Ahhh, Virginia. What a wonderful state. I love that place. Very shortly, I came to the junction of I-81 and headed northeast. The countryside of Virginia is so pretty. I love the farms and mountain views. Exit signs announce the turn off for the Blue Ridge Parkway, Natural Bridge, and the haunts of Thomas Jefferson. I had gone well over 200 miles on I-81 when I came to Harrisonburg. From there I turned west on US 33 and traveled the hilly, windy countryside to the George Washington National Forest.
At this point, US 33 winds up the mountain by way of switchbacks and steep grades until reaching the border of West Virginia. There is a gap in the mountains with an elevation of about 4700 feet. Entering West Virginia, the road drops steeply and I had to keep popping my ears to allow for the change in pressure.
It was about thirty miles to the town of Franklin, WV. By the map, it was a straight shot past Seneca Rocks to where I would start my hike. There were still a few things I wanted to pick up—a disposable camera and a fishing license, so I figured this was the last chance to find those things unless I was willing to make a round-about trip up through Petersburg. I stopped at the local hardware store and found the camera and was given directions to the city hall where I would be able to get the license.
The town of Franklin is small and quiet so I decided to walk the couple of blocks to the courthouse. It was about 3:45 in the afternoon when I got there. The lady who sold me the license was friendly and we talked while she put the license together. As I was walking out, the janitor was locking the front door. I had gotten my license just in time.
I had packed a fly rod and a small amount of tackle in the hopes that I might find trout in Red Creek. I remembered that the creek was waist deep in places so I wanted to be prepared just in case. The reel was packed in a small mesh bag along with clippers, hemostats and a tin that held four flies, two each of Adams flies and woolly Bugs.
The rod, one I had purchased a few years earlier for a trip out to Idaho, was a seven-foot two-piece. I had made a case for it out of PVC pipe, two endcaps, small eyebolts and a strap. Encased, it was at least three and a half foot long. I would have preferred a three or four piece rod and a shorter tube, but using what I had, I was resigned to this long tube being strapped to my pack, knowing that should I need my raincover it was going to be tricky figuring out how it would fit.
Getting back in the truck, I headed north on US 33 towards Seneca Rocks. It occurred to me that Franklin was also the name of my last stop whenever I hiked the Nantahala in North Carolina. About eight miles north of Seneca Rocks, I came to a turn off with a sign pointing west that simply read “Dolly Sods.” This road immediately became a barely passable dirt road that, within a mile, turned to hell. It was very dusty and had not been decently graded in a long time.
After about six miles of this, there was a turn off with another Dolly Sods sign. From there the road was even more pitiful. You had to drive slowly just to keep your teeth from rattling out. Within a few more miles it came to a north - south junction. This was the eastern ridge road that would take me to the Red Creek Campground. The road was no better but the view in places was great. Off to the east was a scenic view that carried for miles. I had already noted a lot of autumn color change mostly with the maples and the birch but this view allowed me to see just how widespread the color change was. It was a grand sight. To the west was the Sods, but I could see very little as the trees came right up to the road.
Traveling north on this road I managed to kick up a lot of dust. The few cars I passed were parked at overlooks so I did not have to contend with their dust. Looking in the rearview mirror I saw my dust trail hanging over the road like a fog. This area normally tends to be very wet so I was surprised by the dust. I figured it must have been several days since there had been any rain. With the few cars I passed I began to wonder if there would be many people at the campground. If I could have my way, I would have taken the place all for myself. From my memory of twenty-six years earlier I remembered that the campground was rocky with low shrubs. This had given an unobstructed view of the whole camp area. This was the image that I was expecting to see.
Coming into the campground I found that a lot of the trees had grown up and the site had been better organized by the park service. There were a lot of maples, mostly red now and I found that poplar trees with their strong yellow fall color had taken root everywhere. Most of the low ground color, the shrubs, was a dark deep red. While I found it to be a very pretty place I could place none of it in my memory.
The camp area consisted of a large loop road with about fifteen secluded campsites set up. Each site had a picnic table, a fire ring and a flat grassy area to set the tent. There was a main area that had a hand pump, outhouses, and an information sign. The campsites were ten dollars a night and there were envelopes provided. You put your money in the envelopes with the number of your campsite on it and placed it into a large welded steel tube. Not as primitive as I wanted but I figured that as far as creature comforts went things would be going downhill pretty fast come tomorrow.
I picked my campsite and set up my tent. I laid out my dinner and cook gear just as it became dusk, about six. There was still enough light so I took a preliminary stab at getting my things organized. Pulling everything from the truck, I sorted what would go and what would stay in the truck. I remembered the digital camera and wanted to see how the new tripod was going to work so I set things up on a small boulder and took a couple of timed shots of myself in front of my tent. It had been a long day on the road and my ears were still buzzing. I had thrown on my jacket as it had gotten chilly when the sun had set behind the trees. I look at that picture now and see myself as tired but very happy. I was finally back in the Dolly Sods after all this time away.
Day One Thursday October 4th, 2001
I woke up about 7:30 to temperatures in the low sixties and clear blue skies. I wasn’t very hungry and I was going to be carrying trail food should that change later so I put water on for coffee and began packing while it was boiling. The weather was nice with a slight chill so I opted for shorts. By the time I was drinking my coffee I had my pack ready to go and it was barely eight so it was clear I would get a good early start.
I had scouted a bit the night before and found a trail leading out from my camp area into the direction I needed to head so I took a chance figuring that this trail would hook up with the Blackbird Knob trail and so planned to head out from this point. Throwing my pack in the back of my truck, I pulled out and drove about three hundred yards to the no-fee parking area. This left my campsite free for someone else to use and no signs that I had used it the night before. No trace hiking dictates that you leave only footprints and these only in areas that will have minimal impact.
I shouldered my pack and walked back to my site. From here I found the trail I had scouted the night before and started out. As I walked, I set my GPS, tucked it in my camera bag attached to my packs chest strap and took a couple of photos of the still present full moon against a backdrop of blue clear skies and treelines splashed with the colors of fall. It was now eight thirty in the morning.
Within minutes, the trail had all but disappeared into a jumble of rocks and boulders. It looked like a giant garden of trees with a mulching groundcover of boulders. There were few to no bushes here and finding a trail was not going to happen. Fortunately I soon spotted my first trail mark. This was a cairn of rocks, stacked one on top of the other making a small simple pyramid. These cairns were set by some previous hiker and are the only trail markings that I would find anywhere in the Dolly Sods, other then the trail signs posted at each junction. It is the parks services philosophy to not clearly mark the trails so as to enhance the true wilderness aspect of the area. At first, I found this troublesome and a bit of a worry but I soon came to appreciate the plan and it added to my sense of accomplishment. Generally, the trails are not hard to follow but some areas require you to remain very alert.