Great Recreation in the Wilds of West Virginia
Rick Steelhammer
A waterfall-rich, 40-square-mile expanse of West Virginia’s Monongahela National Forest could become the Seneca Creek Wilderness Area. More than 70 miles of trails traverse the Seneca Creek Backcountry, providing an array of access routes for hikers, horseback riders, hunters, and anglers. Here, too, is the 4,861-foot summit of Spruce Knob, West Virginia's highest peak.
I am one of 100 million Americans who live within a day’s drive of “the Mon,” as we Mountain Staters refer to this forest. I have been to Seneca Creek a half dozen times, most recently on a steamy summer day. I hiked one of the most scenic gateways: six-mile-long Huckleberry Trail, which drops more than 1,000 feet after leaving the red spruce forest atop Spruce Knob and passes through a series of open meadows before reaching its terminus at Seneca Creek.
The Judy Springs Trail is a one-mile spur off Huckleberry Trail. It takes backpackers to a prime camping area in a ten-acre meadow spreading across both sides of Seneca Creek. At the edge of the meadow, a spring-fed stream bursts out of a rock outcrop and tumbles 100 yards before merging with Seneca. On hot summer days, the misty, narrow hollow encompassing the spring provides natural air conditioning. A length of pipe rammed into the fountainhead decades ago gives hikers a handy tap for refilling water containers.
The Upper Falls of Seneca Creek, a 30-foot cataract that drops into a deep, gin-clear pool suitable for swimming, can be reached by taking a short hike down Seneca Creek Trail from Judy Springs. "It's definitely worth visiting," says Mary Wimmer, a West Virginia University biochemistry professor and a long-time Sierra Club activist. "The canyon narrows dramatically below the falls, and the grade gets steeper. The bedrock forms into a series of chutes, waterfalls, and pools, where you can sit and watch beautiful wild trout doing their thing."
Seneca Creek is one of three West Virginia waters listed in Trout Unlimited's guidebook America's 100 Best Trout Streams, which describes the creek as “a completely wild trout stream off the beaten path.” Seneca Creek provides a home for a self-sustaining population of native eastern brook trout. It is also one of only a few West Virginia streams in which rainbow trout successfully spawn and reproduce.
The area’s wildlife includes black bears, bobcats, ruffed grouse, whitetail deer, and wild turkeys. In the nearly unbroken, high-altitude evergreen forest in the eastern portion of Seneca Creek, you may see a snowshoe hare or the fungi-eating West Virginia northern flying squirrel, now on the federal endangered species list.
While the leaves of trailside blueberry and huckleberry bushes are brimming with water droplets from a just-passed July thunderstorm, it is dry under the canopy of a dense red spruce forest that covers most of the upper three miles of this trail.
Where the trail skirts the western edge of the mountain's northern ridgeline, prevailing west winds have sculpted the spruce into one-sided 'flag' trees. There, in clearings where mountain laurel, flame azalea, and rhododendron don't reach tree-size proportions, there are sweeping views to the west.
In the foreground, Seneca Creek plunges northward through a wild, green, alpine landscape unbroken by roads. Just west of Seneca Creek, Allegheny Mountain forms the Eastern Continental Divide, channeling water from Seneca toward the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay, while directing Gandy Creek on its western slope to the Ohio River, the Mississippi, and the Gulf of Mexico. Hiking west, the elevation drops, and the forest turns to northern hardwoods and meadows loaded with wildflowers.
This is one of the East’s largest remaining public roadless areas not yet protected via addition to the National Wilderness Preservation System. The West Virginia Wilderness Coalition, consisting of Mountain State conservation organizations and national groups such as The Wilderness Society, is mobilizing public support for such protection. The goal is to convince members of Congress from West Virginia to introduce a bill designating 15 remote tracts of the Monongahela as wilderness areas.
History teaches us what can go wrong in the absence of legal protection. Turn-of-the-century clear-cutting stripped West Virginia of all but a few hundred acres of virgin forest. In 1920, the U.S. Forest Service acquired the Seneca Creek land, then in the early stages of rebounding from the clear-cutting.
Unfortunately, when drawing up a long-term management plan for the Mon, the Forest Service failed to recommend that Seneca Creek be made a wilderness area. In fact, the agency’s “preferred alternative” calls for creating only three new wilderness areas and expanding an existing one—a paltry 27,700 acres altogether. (Of the 919,000 acres in this forest, just 78,000 acres, or nine percent, are part of the Wilderness System.)
“I was disappointed that the Forest Service wanted to add so few wilderness areas, and I was particularly surprised that Seneca Creek didn't make the cut,” said Matt Keller, director of the West Virginia Wilderness Coalition. “It should have had top priority.”
Keller said more wilderness protection is needed now, given the Bush administration’s decision to repeal the rule that safeguards national forest roadless areas and a revised management plan for the Mon that, in its draft stage, opens the door to increased timber production and larger clear-cuts. “More and more of the Mon will be on the chopping block for timbering, natural gas development, and road-building,” he said.
Meanwhile, Seneca Creek continues to flow clear and cold. After making a successful rock-hop across two-thirds of the stream, a foot slips, and I am treated to an invigorating boot-full.
A few minutes later, after a short prelude of echoing thunder, a cloudburst opens as I ascend Allegheny Mountain on Bear Hunter Trail. By the time I approach the summit, I am soaked and caked with mud. The 92-degree day that was taking shape when I left Charleston has me digging out a fleece jacket as I head south on Allegheny Mountain Trail.
Soon, the rain stops, and patches of sunlight appear. As I cross a stretch of trail coated with pink and white petals from a rain-pelted rhododendron thicket, songbirds break into an enthusiastic post-storm chorus. I decide to call it “Neo-tropical Dance Mix.”
Shortly before reaching the Swallow Rock Trail junction for the final two miles back to my car, I encounter a pair of northbound backpackers—clean, dry backpackers—who take in my damp, muddy appearance, and ask how I’m doing.
“Just fine,” I reply. “But I haven’t had much luck staying dry.”
After a thoughtful pause, one of them said, “It’s wild country out here.”
Rick Steelhammer is a reporter for the Charleston Gazette and writes a nature/history page called "Wild and Wonderful" for the Sunday Gazette-Mail.
VISITOR INFORMATION
GETTING STARTED: The Seneca Rocks Discovery Center (304-567-2827), operated by the Monongahela National Forest near the junction of U.S. 33 and W.Va. 55 in Seneca Rocks, is a good jumping-off point for visits to the backcountry. Trail maps and information on road and trail conditions are available, along with exhibits on the history and recreational activities of the area, a bookstore, restrooms, and water fountains. From the terrace outside the center, watch climbers scale 900-foot cliffs. The center is open daily 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., April through October. Another good source of maps, guide books, and other information is Main Line Books, 301 Davis Ave., Elkins (304-636-6770).
WHERE TO STAY: Backpack camping is free in the Seneca Creek backcountry. Car camping is free in designated sites along Gandy Creek and Secondary Route 29 south of Whitmer. Fee camping is available at: 1) developed Forest Service campgrounds at Spruce Knob Lake, on Forest Road 1, about 2.5 miles east of its intersection with Secondary Route 29, and 2) Seneca Shadows, one mile south of the Seneca Rocks Discovery Center on U.S. 33.
Motel and cabin accommodations are available at Yokum’s Vacationland in Seneca Rocks (304-567-2351), about 15 miles northeast of the Seneca Creek backcountry. Lower Cheat Land Company in Bowden (304-636-9220, www.lowercheatcabins.com) rents riverside cabins. The Cheat River Lodge (304-636-2301) offers riverside inn and cabin accommodations on the outskirts of Elkins, 25 miles to the west. In Elkins, the Graceland Inn and Conference Center (800-624-3157) at Davis & Elkins College offers lodging and dining in a restored Victorian mansion with 20-mile views. Elkins also is home to numerous chain motels and bed & breakfast establishments.
RECREATION: There are a number of guide services, rafting companies, and other recreation businesses. If you enjoy skiing, visit mid-January to early March for the best conditions. The White Grass Touring Center in Davis (304-866-4114, www.whitegrass.com) maintains 50 km of trails, ranging from 3200 feet to 4400 feet in elevation. Another recreation option is Seneca Rocks Mountain Guides, which
operates a climbing school in Seneca Rocks (304-567-2115, www.senecarocks.com). There is a 40-foot climbing wall for kids (and non-kids), as well as other advanced facilities. Courses run for one, two, or three days.
MORE INFO: Randolph County Convention and Visitors Bureau (304-636-2780). www.randolphcountywv.com
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