Seneca State Forest is NOT where Seneca Rocks are located. It in the south eastern part of the state, and is the oldest state forest (1925). It is a very rural state park, with rudimentary facilities (ie, the cabins have out houses), but that’s a good thing, because it’s undeveloped and beautiful and isolated.

Location: Seneca State Forest
Trail: Thorny Creek Trail (half)
Distance: 4.6 miles
Elevation: 2625 – 3213
Time: 2:20 (moving time)

There is also a lake.

ADDENDUM the First: We’ve now visited 78% of the WV state parks, forests, and wildlife management areas!

Kumbrabow is not a busy forest (nothing like Coopers Rock) and we didn’t see another person on the trails, which is how I like it.

But the thing is, it should be visited, because it is beautiful and a good place to feel like you’ve gotten away from the world. Because you have. Most of the roads are gravel (although in very good shape) so you have to slow down as you drive, enjoying the view around you.

Location: Kumbrabow State Forest
Trails: Meatbox Run, Raven Rocks, and Fire Trails
Distance: 3.9 miles
Elevation: 3077 – 3841 feet
Time: 2:06

I mostly left my camera in my backpack, and although I took some pictures with my phone, they were low light and mostly terrible.

The view from the overlook at Raven Rocks trail was gorgeous, but not very photogenic. Which happens sometimes.

If I am remembering correctly, Kumbrabow is a second generation forest, so there are plenty of fallen trees, decaying where they lay, and so very many of them are fascinating.

There are also plenty of trees that grew up around stumps, which decayed and disappeared, which make fascinating shapes, but every picture I took like that was fuzzy and out of focus. Sorry.

At the Meatbox Run picnic area, they’ve damned up the stream a little bit–Michael things to reduce erosion.

It was quite peaceful.

It was a beautiful day for a hike at Coopers Rock on Sunday, and once again we went early and avoided the crowds.

Location: Coopers Rock State Forest
Trails: Rhododendron, Mount Chateau, Ridge, Rock City, and “casual” trails
Distance: 4.8 miles
Elevation: 1366 – 2011
Time: 2:27 (moving time) 3:06 (including playing in the stream)

So, I’ve been disappointed the past couple hikes on Mont Chateau Trail that no one has created any more balanced rock art. Then I realized that I was nobody, so I made my own.

It was really lovely.

A lot less water this visit.

They’ve got the new signs up!

Alas, they haven’t done anything about this sign…

Got up early to take a short hike at Coopers Rock before it got busy.

It was some lovely quiet.

Location: Coopers Rock State Forest
Trails: Underlook & Rattlesnake Trails
Distance: 1.4 miles
Elevation: 1991 – 2133 feet

Because it’s typically so crowded and loud, I often forget how much I like the overlook.

No hiking here. But we DID visit.

Here is, pretty much, the entire state park.

Here you go! The headwaters of the Potomac!

We took a gorgeous hike at Canaan Valley State Park (checked that one off the list!) and although it was muddy in spots (it has rained for seemingly two months straight) it wasn’t difficult to get around the mud (ie, no impassable rhododendron).

Location: Canaan Valley State Park
Trail: Middle Ridge State Park
Distance: 2.4 miles
Elevation: 3210-3501 feet

FINALLY we could get back out to Coopers Rock without having to hike in rain and storms.

The streams were running high, which meant I had to be careful traipsing through the water.

I was, and it was gorgeous.

Location: Coopers Rock State Forest
Trails: Rhododendron, Mont Chateau trails (plus splashing through a very cold stream)
Distance: 4.4 miles
Elevation: 874 feet

I believe that’s the most water I’ve seen coming through this stream.

And now a brief rant/whine.

I don’t dislike bicycles. In fact I have one and enjoy riding it.

However.

Some of my favorite trails at Coopers Rock are a muddy mess because of mountain bikers.

It’s been raining, so of course the trails are going to be wet in areas–especially where the trail is also part of a watershed run-off. I expect that.

The problem is that when people bike through these areas when it’s this wet, the entire trail becomes a churned up mess that is messy and ugly and not very fun to hike. There are sections of trail where the churned up mud is twice as wide as the trail, because of mountain bikers.

I don’t mind getting my feet wet (obviously), and I expect the trails to be muddy when it’s been raining as frequently as it has been. But I think it’s ridiculous that whole sections of trail are almost impassible unless you want to slog through a couple inches of mud.

As hikers, we have the ability to go off the trail, to try and avoid the nasty mess, but that’s not in the best interest of the forest.

Yes, the forest is open the everyone–that’s one of the many joys and benefits of living in WV. But I don’t see why bikers can’t use a little common courtesy and not tear up the trails when they are wet and muddy.

They’re ruining it for those of us who want to take our time and enjoy the scenery as we go past.

OK, done ranting.

Here’s some more gorgeous stream to close on.

Stonewall Resort State Park is probably the best maintained park we’ve visited.

Of course, after a month of rain, there’s not much they can do about all the high water and mud, though they did try.

Location: Stonewall Jackson Resort State Park
Trails: Hevener’s Orchard, Cairns, Lakeside Trails (this map is NOT up to date, last check)
Distance: 3.9 miles
Elevation: 719 feet

(SUPER fancy blazes!)

We dubbed this trail, the Canada trail.

Hmmmm….

Nope.

I can see why you might make that mistake, but still: wrong.

Points to anyone who knows WHAT is wrong, and why Michael and I giggled this entire section of trail.

Due to the issues we had at Cabwaylingo, we didn’t have as much time as we’d wanted for Chief Logan State Park.

Location: Chief Logan State Park
Trails: Cliffside, Waterfall (partial) Trails
Distance: 2.5 miles (including roads between trails)
Elevation: 248 feet

The park has an interesting history, as it was built upon old mine sites, and like several other parks/forests in the state, the remains of mining operations can be seen.

There is also a WV history museum that is free to visit, and which includes items from mine history and a Conestoga wagon. (Also, it is air conditioned, which was a nice break between trails.)

No pictures, sorry!

Location: Cabwaylingo State Forest (last check, link was down)
Trails: Sleepy Hollow, Martin Ridge Trail
Distance: 2.9 / 5.8 miles
Elevation: 799 feet

Saturday we were starting in Charleston, so decided to go to some south-west parks. We went first to Cabwaylingo State Forest (the cause of the drive over many one-lane bridges).

It was… disappointing.

The trails we took were not well-maintained, were poorly blazed, and signage was missing in important places.

By not-well maintained, I don’t mean rough trail. I mean sections of the trail being completely unpassable, and alternate routes were somewhat dangerous (as in a fallen tree with branches completely blocking part of the trail on a steep slope. I managed to scramble down the rocks, but might have had serious trouble if the rocks had been wet and even slipperier.)

(Those pictures are terrible, because my cell phone was not clean, and I took them on my fly without stabilizing. But you get the idea. And that isn’t the hill path that was blocked. There I was just concentrating on getting to the next section of trail.)

Yes, in the wilderness everything should not be paved. Believe me, I understand that, but in other state parks trails have been marked as having trees down making them hard to pass.

The other problem was that Cabwaylingo has a lot of gas wells. I don’t care for their existence in state parks, but I recognize that the parks need money, and if the wells can be unobtrusive, fine. I can live with it. Unfortunately, gas wells mean gas company roads. So in multiple parks hiking trails have become gas roads. I don’t much like that, but again, I understand the necessity.

The problem at Cabwaylingo was that in addition to having trails that were on gas company roads, there were also new roads that were not marked on the maps, and the intersections at those roads were not blazed or signed.

Let me tell you, walking down half a mile of gas company road (gravel, no shade, rutted, muddy) and discovering you are at a dead end and must have taken a wrong turn at the unmarked intersection is VERY frustrating. Especially since according to the GPS & maps, you are relatively close to where you are supposed to be–but not close enough.

So our hike that should have been 3 miles plus a half mile (or so) walk back along the road turned into 5.8 miles total.

No, it’s not the end of the world, but it was very frustrating. Especially since the trail we were taking parallels the correct route for quite a distance (we checked multiple times after choosing our path, but it looked like our path was matching the trail we were supposed to be following, so we went on).

I’m a huge fan of the state parks, and want everyone to spend time in them, but I wouldn’t recommend Cabwaylingo to anyone for hiking, unless you were willing to accept the frustrations of missing signs and blazes and a two mile hike on gas well roads and other such issues.

Since we’d already visited three parks, we decided to stop at Carnifex Ferry on the way, to make it four for the day, six for the weekend (a record for us).

Carnifex Ferry overlooks the Gauley River Canyon, near Summersville (Land of Speedtraps). We had no idea what to expect, since it’s a Civil War Battlefield, but it had an utterly gorgeous view of the Gauley River Canyon. If you’re in the area, you should definitely divert her for the view.

Location: Carnifex Ferry Battlefield State Park
Trail: Patterson Trail
Distance: 1.2 miles
Elevation: 157 feet (there is a very steep drop down to the Copperhead Overlook)

View from Copperhead Overlook

Pillow Rapids Overlook

Picnic Overlook

Stop four on Sunday was Little Beaver State Park. If we were local, we’d probably go there frequently; I don’t think we’ll make another trip just to go there, but if we’re in the area, we’ll stop again.

Location: Little Beaver State Park
Trails: Lake Front Trail, Beaver Creek Trail
Distance: 1.8 miles
Elevation: negligible

Had I mentioned what a gorgeous day it was? It was a gorgeous day.

Standing on the bridge over the Little Beaver Creek.

The Beaver Creek trail was supposed to have a bridge crossing the creek. We got there, and… no bridge.

So we cross the creek on the rocks. Oh. That’s where the bridge is.

Michael and I were debating when the damage had been done. I said it was probably Sandy damage, he disagreed.

The website, of course, give us no enlightenment.

This was our second park of the day, and we ran into the problem that the trail blazing seemed to stop about halfway up the trail we wanted to take, and after the previous day’s eight mile and the fact we had to drive home, we decided to err on the side of caution, and took a shorter hike.

Which was perfectly fine.

Location: Bluestone State Park
Trails: Big Pine Trail, Overlook Trail
Distance: 2.5 miles
Elevation: 760 feet

They’re replacing the bridge, which is good for safety, I’m sure, but I love how iron bridges look, and the replacement just isn’t picturesque.

Our first stop Sunday morning was Pinnacle Rock State Park, which is near Bramwell. Due to some confusion on the part of the GPS about what part of the park we wanted to see, we ended up driving through Bramwell, and seeing a bit of the area, and narrowly avoided going into Virginia.

Location: Pinnacle Rock State Park

Up up up to the rock!

Looking down at the trail from the lower part of the park.

Unfortunately, stupid children have spray painted the rock extensively, so it was hard to get a picture without graffiti.

The view from the top.

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