The Sunday Gazette-Mail Travel Guide

Hiking highlight:
Trail affords an easy walk to highest point in W.Va.

RIVERTON — You don’t need ropes, oxygen or crampons to reach the summit of West Virginia’s highest peak, but a good set of shock absorbers is still recommended.

You can drive almost to the top of Spruce Knob, the 4,863-foot promontory that also marks the highest point in the Chesapeake Basin watershed. From a parking area at the end of the road, it’s a flat, quarter-mile hike to a two-story stone and steel observation tower at the summit.

Thanks to road construction completed late last year, it’s now a much less dusty and bumpy trip to the top. From the well-marked access road 2 miles south of Riverton on W.Va. 33, it’s a 12-mile trek to the top, with all but the final three miles freshly paved. But the last three miles of dirt road still involve the traditional obstacle course of potholes and potential frame-scraping rocks associated with trips to the state’s high point for generations.

Rapidly approaching
Whitewater season gets under way in West Virginia

It’s the start of the whitewater season on the New River, the state’s top-drawing warm-weather whitewater stream. The New drops 240 feet during its 14-mile journey through the lower end of the mile-wide, 1,000-foot-deep New River Gorge, providing a series of rapids ranging from bouncy Class I to paddle-or-die Class V.

On the nearby Gauley River, the whitewater season peaks in September and October. That’s when the Army Corps of Engineers draws down Summersville Lake, giving paddlers from around the world an aquatic roller coaster ride through an unbroken chain of turbulent chutes and challenging drops.

Boathouse
Legacy of four generations of West Virginians working on the Kanawha and Ohio goes on display

CARBON-ARC searchlights that illuminated the night waters for steam-powered towboats in the early 20th century can be found here, along with the pilot chairs once occupied by legendary rivermen of a bygone era. ... The legacy of four generations of West Virginians who worked on the Kanawha and Ohio rivers is being preserved in a museum at the Port Amherst headquarters of Amherst Industries and its river transportation and construction arm, Madison Coal and Supply.

Warm-weather attraction
Mild January brought record number of riders to Hatfield-McCoy Trail

JULIAN — As the January sun beamed down on the Boone County hillsides from a cloudless sky, four all-terrain vehicle riders from New York motored their way from Big Earl’s Campground to the nearby Little Coal River Trail System of the Hatfield-McCoy Trail.

Temperatures approached the 50-degree mark as riders veered off a gravel access road and headed up a hill, following one of the trail system’s narrow, well-marked routes.

It’s a scene that has been repeated frequently this winter at sites along the 500-mile Hatfield-McCoy Trail system.

The region’s ski areas have suffered due to the unseasonably warm weather, but the ATV and off-road motorcycle-friendly Southern West Virginia trail is posting its busiest winter yet.

Heritage Farm gives a look at past living in Appalachia

In 1850, rural West Virginians cooked their food in cast-iron pots over open fires. They swept their floors with brooms they made themselves, and carried water on their shoulders using wooden water yokes they also made themselves. They built their own lard presses and butter churns. They sewed their woolen coats out of wool they sheared and washed, then carded, spun, dyed and wove.

West Virginians were living then in a preindustrial agricultural age, said Mike Perry, the former chairman of Bank One West Virginia who now runs the Heritage Farm Museum and Village outside Huntington. The museum and village displays the antique tools and machines that Perry and his wife, Henriella, have spent the past 35 years searching out.

Kaymoor Bottom
Old mining site presents challenging hike to visitors

FAYETTEVILLE — During the first half of the past century, residents of Kaymoor Bottom used to reach their New River Gorge coal town by riding the open railcars of a cable tramway 2,500 feet down a canyon wall.

In the early 1990s, long after the town site had been abandoned and acquired by the National Park Service, there was talk of building an aerial tramway to Kaymoor Bottom to bring visitors face to face with the New River Gorge’s industrial past without having to break a sweat.

But these days, the only way to reach Kaymoor Bottom and the Kaymoor Mine site is by descending the steepest trail in the New River Gorge National River’s trail system — Kaymoor Miner’s Trail.

“It’s about one mile down to the bottom of the Gorge and at least two miles back up,” joked Oak Hill resident Danny Oliver, as he clambered up the last of 819 wooden stair-steps that make up the lower end of Kaymoor Miner’s Trail. “It’s a good workout, but it’s worth the effort.”

Standing guard
Civil War fort held a key position on Ohio River

PARKERSBURG — With sweeping views of the Ohio River, Little Kanawha River, and downtown Parkersburg, it’s easy to see why the Union Army built a fortress and artillery position here in 1863.

Below, the western ends of the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike and the Northwestern Turnpike could easily be seen, along with a key spur line of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and bustling river docks.

The undeveloped country
Calvin Price may be our wildest forest

HUNTERSVILLE — Wind gusts streaming through the white pine canopy create a sound like faraway surf — the only noise to be heard after crossing Laurel Run and its sleepy murmur of water passing over smooth rocks and entering Calvin Price State Forest.

Virtually uncrossed by roads and trails and lacking picnic tables, pools and other traditional visitor amenities, Cal Price is likely the least-known, least-visited state forest in West Virginia.

Nestled between Watoga State Park, the proposed Spice Run Wilderness Area in the Monongahela National Forest and the Greenbrier River Trail, the 9,400-acre Cal Price is perhaps West Virginia’s wildest state forest.

Mothman has his own museum
Collection includes props from movie, lots of other items related to creature

The Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and the Jersey Devil are names recognized worldwide, hunted by those with an insatiable curiosity. For residents of West Virginia’s own Point Pleasant, there is another name that should be on that list: Mothman.

The reported sightings of the large, winged creature with red glowing eyes started in the late 1960s, coinciding with many strange happenings in the area, including some saucer-like unidentified flying objects and climaxing with the collapse of the Silver Bridge in December 1967 that killed 46 people.

Feeling edgy
Cliff-hugging trails provide great views of New River Gorge

FAYETTEVILLE - After hiking a short connector trail across Butcher Branch from the Kaymoor Top parking area, the narrow path merged with wide, well-maintained Long Point Trail, where two National Park Service employees were digging drainage diversions.

"You'll know you're at the end of the trail when you can see the New River Gorge Bridge across the canyon," said one. "You can't go any farther unless you've got wings, since it's 800 feet straight down."