Geobeet's Dolly Sods Trip Report

“This was a car camping trip with family, but with some day hikes in the plans. We arrived at Red Creek Campground on Sun., Aug. 18. On Monday I walked out to Raven Ridge to get some photographs for the fine folks at West Virginia Highlands Conservancy relative to the windmill project proposed for the Allegheny Front.

The trail leaves the Forest Service road just south of Bear Rocks, slabs up and around a nameless ridge, then drops down to Dobbins Grade, an old logging railroad grade. It crosses the grade, drops a bit more into a boggy meadow and crosses the main stem of Red Creek (the right fork facing upstream).

Then it climbs steeply to a clearing and slabs around the toe of Raven Ridge. Just after it comes into the clearing, a faint path leads right and climbs into an area of second growth deciduous forest. Near the top of the knob the trail goes into a meadow, extends across the open knob, down into a saddle, and climbs an open ridge. That ridge ultimately joins Raven Ridge, which is semi-forest and semi-meadow.

The trail runs just south of a nameless knob with views into the Stony River watershed north of Dolly Sods. One can see the existing coal fired power plant and the Allegheny Front where the windmills would be built.

Raven Ridge joins Cabin Mountain about three and a half miles from the trailhead. From Cabin Mountain there are views into Canaan Valley and the Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge – a vast expanse of wild land. Much of the refuge is swamp.

The trail is perhaps the prettiest on the northern Sods. I came back to camp very impressed with what I saw and wondered how the trail had escaped my attention so long. The fact is, it was never indicated on topo maps or in the Monongahela Guide. For a map ref, go to http://home.adelphia.net/~johntrudy/

On Wednesday, my son Paul, daughter-in-law Elyce, and grandson Zach and I walked the Red Creek Trail. The Blackbird Knob Trail leaves from a trailhead just north of the campground, climbs the knob to the immediate west, and drops gently down to Alder Run. The trail slabs around another knob, drops just a bit to the right fork of Red Creek, then climbs steeply to a meadow. It skirts the meadow, then climbs through second growth deciduous trees to the junction with the Red Creek Trail two miles from the trailhead.

The Red Creek Trail descends gently through rolling meadows with blueberries and huckleberries, then drops steeply to the Forks of Red Creek. The trail crosses to the left bank and follows an old logging railroad grade high above the creek. It then crosses back to the right bank just below a pretty, but not very high waterfall coming off a shale shelf. There were a lot of plant fossils around the base of the falls. We broke for lunch – Powerbars and homemade jerky.

From this point down to Laneville Cabin, the creek and the trails were washed out severely in floods that began in 1985 and continued into the 90s. We missed the connecting trail up to the new trail and ended up bushwhacking down the floodway with boulders as big as a small house, trees jammed together, and the hot sun beating down.

I found a bench where we picked up a trace of a trail blazed with cairns. We followed it a way, lost it, and found it again. We eventually ended up on another rail grade, met a photographer who told us about the high trail on the other side of the creek. We crossed over, found the waterfall he mentioned, and climbed very steeply to the trail. We followed it for a mile or so, went down along the creek, and lost it in another washout. I scrambled up the steep bank to find the trail again. Elyce and Paul joined me, but Zach had hit his wall. He was in a panic, crying, wanting to stumble blindly down the trail and cussing us out because he thought we didn’t know where we were going and “didn’t even have a damn map.”

I got him sat down, threw my map to him, and said, “Here’s the damn map, now tell me where we are.” He looked at the map, mumble to himself, and then said he didn’t know. I had him come to me with the map, showed him where we were, and where we were headed. Then I told him that panic in the wilderness is a good way to die, to sit down when he feels that way, drink some water, calm down, and think. He went the rest of the way to Laneville Cabin feeling a lot better, so we arrived at Paul’s van that we had shuttled down the night before.

The last trip took me alone out the Blackbird Knob Trail and across to Cabin Mountain. I headed north, took the next trail back east. There is a huge rock stack on the knob just north of this trail that needs to be explored when I get back there. The trail dropped down into a meadow, crossed the left fork of Red Creek, and connected to Dobbins Grade. That headed northeast, then east, then southeast to connect to a trail that crosses an unnamed knob before rejoining the Blackbird Knob Trail in the meadow just before the Red Creek Trail.

I lost this trail, so I bushwhacked southeasterly and actually ended up back on the faint trail where it joins the Blackbird Knob Trail.

The area of this hike was lush bogs with cottongrass and open meadows.

I hiked on a lot of trail I had never been on before and fell more deeply in love with the Sods. Geologically it is a syncline (U-shaped valley) sloping gently behind the Allegheny Front, which is the region just beyond the folded Appalachians. The plateau is roughly four miles wide. The northern part of the Sods is open meadows that resulted from logging and burning, then being used to graze cattle and sheep. It will slowly return to a climax spruce forest with rhododendron hells and open bogs as it was when the first explorer crossed it.

The lower portion is cut deeply by Red Creek – part of the eternal process of mountain building by tectonics and erosion by water. It is geologically unique with unique weather and unique plant and animal life. Deer, bear, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, and other mammals live there. It is home for part of the year to woodcocks (aka timberdoodles).

The Allegheny Front Migratory Observatory was at work on an overlook just off the trailhead parking lot. These folks band small migratory birds, check their health, and release them. They count other migrating species – raptors, butterflies, and more, from Aug. 10 to Oct. 10 each year. They invite visitors and will show folks what they do, answer questions, and talk freely about their work. They are all a pleasure.”

“Of course, I neglected to mention the matter of the broken leg suffered after slipping on a wet rock in the campground just before leaving on Aug. 25. If I had to suffer a broken leg, this one was well worth it.”

“Great description of the area. Sounds like you had a great time. To bad about Zach, good to hear you got out OK.”

“Geobeet! That sounds like a bad injury! You'll have plenty of time to recollect on the trip. Hope you have a speedy recovery. Dig out a good itching stick!”

“Killer trip report, Geobeet! I've gotta check out the Sods sometime.

That sucks about the leg, but sounds like you had a fantastic time. The leg will be healed before you know it. Hang in there!”

“Thanks for sharing your trip report with us Geobeet.”

“NIce report Geobeet. One of my favorite things about hiking with Buddur is hearing about the geology of the area. Thanks for including a bit in your report.”

“now...where are the pics...sorry to hear about your leg.”

“i slipped on my fair share of rocks over the weekend. i thought for sure i was going over a dropoff one time. i told myself i had to be more careful and fell again not 10 minutes later. them wet, mossy rocks'll get ya.”

“if you think it's worth the broken leg.”

“Dolly Sods is just an awesome place. Lighting and thunder are very awesome up there. You can feel the ground shake while lying in your tent when it hits. The winds are also impressive because of the elevation. Had a tough time keeping the Tarp Mahal up.

I think too the open meadows make the place special. You can see the surrounding terrain almost everywhere except the few forested areas. The stands of spruce make nice protected campsites.

One note to anybody planning a hike there: take a water filter. The creeks drain both bogs and beaver ponds. Also, west Nile turned up in some dead birds, so take the bug spray.”

“Now that's a trip report...

Sorry to hear you'll be missing the north fork laurel trail (or whatever it's called) in October, Geo.”

“Yeah, me too. Geologically it's a unique mountain. The Tuscarora sandstone is the whitish rock that forms the cliffs. The mountain is part of an anticline (inverted U-shape) that once extended in a complete arch to the same Tuscarora sand that forms Seneca Rocks and all the other vertical stacks of rock in North Fork Valley. There apparently was a fault in the arch south of North Fork Gap (the northern point in the hike), and water has eroded all that rock to form Germany Valley.

North of North Fork Gap, the arch is still intact.

I'll post that geology note on the North Fork thread for everybody to read.”

“For anybody who missed it the first go-round:”

“thanks Mr. Beet! Too bad about the leg. Wondered when it happened”

“Sunday, Aug. 25, about 8:30 a.m. EDT, luckily at the end of the trip with the car packed.”