Roaring Plains, or We Actually Went Backpacking

We went out to Roaring Plains with a couple of friends two weekends ago. The weather forecast, honestly, wasn't great. There were significant chances for showers both days, so I wasn't sure how it was going to go. Our itinerary was a little up in the air depended on how fast we were able to hike. I was hoping to explore a little bit more than the area where we've been up there. We were also hoping for blueberries. Neither of those things happened, but we still had a really nice trip.

Saturday, we really won the weather lottery. There were scattered clouds and a couple of times it looked like some of them might organized themselves into something more assertive, but it never happened. The temperature was nice and it was mostly sunny. Flowers were blooming everywhere in the bogs and meadows in an end-of-summer bonanza. We did find some blueberries, but only just enough for our morning oatmeal. Many of the blueberries we found were well past their prime. We made pretty good time to the gas line cut. From there the trail (which it technically is, but calling it that is...generous) gets more challenging to follow. When we did this trip two years ago, it took all four of us and two dogs paying attention to keep to the route. It was no different this time, although we only had one dog. Late in the afternoon, we picked a wonderful campsite right on the rim of the plateau with a great view of North Fork Mountain and Seneca Rocks to the southeast.

The path across one of the heath balds. The low shrubs are almost all blueberries.

 Picking blueberries.

The gas line cut through the area. After this the trail gets much more challenging.

Rudebeckia laciniata (Cut-Leaf Coneflower)

 The view from the promontory aptly named, "The Point"

 The same overlook.

 The view from our campsite.

Sunset from our campsite.

Clouds rolled in overnight and we woke up to overcast skies and high winds. The rain held off long enough for us to eat breakfast, but not long enough for us to keep the tent dry while we packed up. We debated which way to go: to continue on the loop or to turn back the way we came. As we were discussing it, the clouds lifted and we spotted some blue sky. We continued on the loop. The section of this trail (again, a term used generously here) between our campsite and where it meets up with the Roaring Plains Trail is probably one of the most rugged trails I've hiked in the mid-Atlantic. Even having hiked this before, we really had to pay attention to stay on the route. Even so, we had to backtrack several times to get back on the right path. By the time we reached the long boulder field that the trail descends, the wind had mostly dried the rocks, which made that section easier. The weather held exactly as long as we needed it to: As soon as we made it to the bottom of the boulder field, it started raining lightly again. We finally made it to the junction with the Roaring Plains Trial just before noon: three hours to go a little over two miles.

We caught another break in the rain for lunch at a nice campsite at the junction. As soon as we began packing up, the rain started again and, this time, with purpose. We took a right on the well-maintained Roaring Plains Trail and our pace tripled. Soon enough, we reached the forest road that we had to hike for a couple of miles back to the car.

It was a great trip. This is one of my favorite areas to hike. I want to get back up there again and do more exploring. I sort of assumed that, since we had hiked the rough section two years ago, that we would move faster on it this time, which was wrong. It is just a hard, slow section of trail to navigate. Lesson learned and we'll do a different route next time if I want to see a different part of the plateau. Another bonus: We didn't see a single other person the entire weekend.

Waking up to gray skies.

Overcast, slightly dreary view before breakfast.

 After the first rain shower moved through, fog rose from the creeks in the valleys.

 Contemplating the boulder field.

 Platanthera ciliaris (Yellow Fringed Orchid). One of the more interesting plants in this area.

Gentiana linearis (Narrow-leaved Gentian). These beautiful little flowers were going off everywhere.

Roaring Plains: Fall Colors and a Little Snow

We got a text last weekend, as we were finishing up our week-long ride from Pittsburgh to DC, asking if we wanted to go backpacking this weekend. At the time, it seemed kind of overwhelming to put together another trip, albeit a short one, on such short notice. After a day of thinking about it, we decided that it had been a really long time since we had actually backpacked anywhere other than to a base camp on Old Rag. In fact, our last real backpacking trip was in Icleand in 2012. It was time to spend a night out in the woods again for real.

We settled on Roaring Plains, just south of Dolly Sods, in West Virginia and then watched the forecast get colder and colder as the week progressed. Packing for the trip was sort of a challenge, mentally. I had ridden my bike to work in shorts on Friday. Friday evening, I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around packing for sub-freezing temperatures three hours' drive to the west. It was good that I did, though.

We arrived at the trailhead Saturday morning in the middle of a snow/sleet squall. While waiting for our friends to arrive, we watched ominous gray clouds roll through with alarming speed in the high winds. On the bright side, the leaves were turning. We chatted with some bear hunters at the trailhead who were out running their dogs to get them in shape for the upcoming bear season. We also chatted briefly with a group of four guys from Pittsburgh that we would end up spending quite a bit more time with, although we didn't realize it at the time.

 We set off down the South Prong Trail, crossing the many boardwalks over bogs. The blueberry bushes had turned dramatic shades of red that lined the trail for large sections of the trip.

The weather cleared up pretty quickly after we started hiking and we got a view to the north of Dolly Sods in the distance.

A couple of miles down the South Prong Trail, there is a turnoff to a bushwhack. We made the turn too early when we hiked in Roaring Plains in August and wound up spending about an hour wandering around a bog, looking for the path. This time, we avoided that and made great time hiking through the bushwhack. Although not technically a trail, the path is well-beaten and easy to follow - as long as you successfully find the start of it.

Our friends hiking along the bushwhack through Hay-Scented Ferns.

 Red blueberry leaves in a high meadow.

The bushwack ends at a gas line cut. We turned south on this and descended towards Jonathan's Canyon Rim Trail, at the bottom of the hill in the lower middle of the photo.

Spiranthes cernua (Nodding Ladies Tresses). This is the third orchid species I've found in Roaring Plains and the second of which I've found in the gas line cut. I was more than a little surprised to see them this late in the season.

Leaves on the beginning of Jonathan's Canyon Rim Trail. In spite of the fact that this was ostensibly a named trail, this was a much more rugged path than the bushwhack we had just completed. It is much more faint, especially where it crosses rock fields and slides. There are cairns, but there were also times where we were navigating by looking at where moss had been worn off of the rocks or roots had been rubbed by having been stepped on.

Even though it took a sharp eye to find the trail in several places, we never lost it. If we found a place where a couple of paths appeared to diverge, we would briefly investigate the possibilities and choose the one that looked most worn and kept parallel to the ridgeline we were following. That strategy never steered us wrong. That said, our progress was pretty slow that afternoon. We made one really fortunate decision regarding water. The trail description we were using said that water sources were fairly iffy beyond a certain point. We reached a good flowing stream and decided to go ahead and fill all of our water containers so that we would have the option of taking a campsite without worrying about water. It turned out that stream was the last water we would see that day or well into the next.

The trail along the edge of the ridgeline, still lined with blueberries (there really is a trail through that).

Looking southeast from an overlook called "the Point."

About an hour before sunset, we arrived at a dry campsite at the junction of our trail with TeePee Trail. We looked at how far we had to go to the campsite we had planned to reach, glanced at the time, and decided to stop for the night. The group I mentioned earlier from Pittsburgh was also there, trying to locate the TeePee Trail. Eventually, they found it, but they made the same available daylight calculation and with some apology, shared our campsite for the night. It was plenty big enough to accommodate two groups of four and they were pleasant company.

Saturday night was cold, especially after cycling in shorts the day before. It actually snowed lightly while we were sitting around the fire. It didn't stick to the ground, but it snowed. The wind also screamed all night. Fortunately, our campsite was somewhat sheltered, but we listened to it roar above us. We woke up to ice in our water bottles in the morning.

In the morning, we gave the Pittsburgh group our spare water since they were completely out. We then continued along the Canyon Rim Trail. We reached an epic boulder field that felt like it was miles long (it was probably half a mile long).

Cairns marked the way through the boulder field, which made things easier, but we still made really slow progress. It took us nearly two hours to about 1.5 miles. The Canyon Rim Trail is probably the most rugged trail I've been on in the Mid-Atlantic. It took constant attention to make sure that we didn't stray from it. Once we were off of it, I was pretty proud that we managed not to have any serious navigational mishaps along the way.

The Roaring Plains Trail seemed like a paved sidewalk in comparison to what we had just come through and we made fast progress on it.

A fern along the trail.

We hiked out a few miles along Forest Road 70. The road passes an old orchard and some of the trees had small apples on them. These actually turned out to be pretty good, in spite of their small size.

This was a spectacular trip. The fall colors, the rugged terrain, the challenge of navigating. All of it added up to a nearly perfect weekend in the woods. This trip just reinforced my initial impression of Roaring Plains from August: It is a remarkably beautiful, rugged place that is deserving of further exploration.

Roaring Plains: Flowers and Berries in the West Virginia Highlands

Friends of ours wanted to go looking for blueberries - the wild kind - this weekend. The West Virginia mountains seemed to be the most likely place we would find them this late. I love, love hiking in West Virginia. It is a long drive and we could only do a day trip, but as usual, it was totally worth it. We discussed going to Dolly Sods, but I kind of wanted to explore a new area. Roaring Plains seemed to fit the bill. It is quite literally, across the road from Dolly Sods, just as high, and just as likely to have sweet, sweet blueberries. I had also read that it is less crowded than Dolly Sods (of course, if you visit Dolly Sods in the winter, crowding isn't really a problem). Roaring Plains, which gets its name from the terrible weather that can blow across the area, was absolutely spectacular.

We got a bit of a late start, but soon enough, we were hiking on the boardwalks of the South Prong Trail. The forecast called for an even chance of showers in the afternoon and we were definitely hiking in the clouds to start. It was actually a little chilly at the trailhead. The South Prong Trail starts out by meandering through a series of interesting bogs and rock formations. In one place, where I should have taken a picture, we came around a corner to find big slabs of rock with red spruce trees on them. The weather is so fierce up there that all of the trees were flagged (deformed in the direction of the prevailing winds). On this section of trail, we were supposed to get some views of Dolly Sods to the north and of the mountains to the south. The cloud we were hiking through blocked anything beyond the ridge we were walking on. As to our main goal, we found a few blueberries in this section, but not a lot.

 A boardwalk on the South Prong Trail.

 An interesting bug on a rock.

This lichen had interesting little cups topped with little red flecks.

After a little less than two miles, we turned off on an obvious footpath, taking what we thought was a somewhat well-known unofficial trail. It did not turn out to be the right path. We saw lots of interesting things and wandered around a bog for about half an hour before deciding to backtrack and see where we had gone wrong. About 25 yards further down the South Prong Trail, we found the correct unofficial footpath. I hesitate to call it a bushwhack, because once on the correct path, it was very straightforward. There was no question about the right way to go.

About halfway down the unofficial trail, we broke out into a large, high meadow.

 And there were the blueberries! Michael and our friends picking some beside the path.

The meadow was carpeted in them.

By this time, the sun had also burned off the clouds, so we finally got a nice view to the south. After following the ridgeline for about a mile, we intersected a gas pipeline cut.

We followed it south to the top of the hill in the middle of the photo, hoping for a good view.

Along the way, we met this Timber Rattler, hanging out in the brush on the edge of the pipeline cut. It didn't coil when it saw us, but it did watch us pretty closely. There's nothing quite like walking along and realizing your foot was a few inches away from one of these just a few seconds ago.

At the top of the hill in the pipeline cut, we found a side path that led out to a nice overlook with a view to the southwest.

A bootshot from the overlook. From there, we returned up the pipeline cut and passed the unofficial trail, continuing on to Forest Road 70. We had a 3.5 mile walk out on the gravel road. Blackberries and a few red raspberries, and the sound of a gurgling stream made the trip pretty pleasant.

The other thing that made this trip so cool was the interesting flowers, several of which were new to me:

Stenanthium leimanthoides (Pinebarrens Death-camas). Seeing this member of the Lily Family is a little bit like seeing a unicorn, at least in the Mid-Atlantic. I struggled for a while to figure out what it actually is. It looks a lot like Amianthum muscaetoxicum (Fly Poison), but the flower stalks on A. muscaetoxicum don't branch like they do on this flower. Finally, a random PDF on the web which lists some of the species in Dolly Sods led me to the right flower. It is rare enough that only one of my books actually lists it. It has sort of a weird distribution: A few counties in the West Virginia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee mountains and then coastal New Jersey and New York.

Platanthera ciliaris (Yellow Fringed Orchid). In looking up the identity of this flower, I learned that no two flowers have the same fringe pattern on their lower petal.

Platanthera clavellata (Small Green Wood Orchid). I nearly missed this one growing beside the path in some grass.

Gentiana linearis (Narrow-leaved Gentian). This flower is only found this far south at the highest elevations in West Virginia. It is much more common further north. The West Virginia population is a classic remnant population.

Anaphalis margaritacea (Pearly Everlasting).

Rhododendron maximum (Great Rhododendron). There were some late-blooming Rhododendrons on the road at the end of our hike.

It was a great hike. We only saw four other people and it never did rain on us. We will definitely be returning to Roaring Plains to explore further.