I spent Memorial Day weekend visiting my friend Craig in Morgantown, WV. On Saturday, we took a mini-hike on the rail-to-trail path along the Monongahela River to downtown. It was about a mile, mile and a half from his house…to the brewery, so I guess it doesn’t really count as a training hike, right?  Oh well…

On Sunday, we met up with Craig’s friend Melanie near Aurora, WV. On the way there, we passed by beautiful Deep Creek Lake and Wisp ski resort. We picked up Melanie and headed to Blackwater Falls State Park, named for the falls of the Blackwater River “whose amber-colored waters plunge five stories then twist and tumble through an eight-mile long gorge. The ‘black’ water is a result of tannic acid from fallen hemlock and red spruce needles.”  We parked at the Visitor Center lodge, and then walked around back for a view from an overlook. We followed the Elakala Trail to a bridge over some small falls. That trail led us to the Balanced Rock Trail for about a half mile, which then spit us out on the Red Spruce Riding Trail. The ground was pretty wet, so we had to be on the lookout for mud puddles, as well as horse droppings. I noticed that we were so high up in the mountains that spring was coming late. Many of the trees were still budding, and I didn’t see any of the flowers that we’ve seen the last couple of weeks in Shenandoah.

After about a mile, the riding trail led us to the Stables where we picked up the Yellow Birch Trail (after passing the Country Critters petting zoo). At that point, we said goodbye to Melanie, who had to head off to a family gathering. After another mile, we came to the main road and on the other side, a short trail to an overlook of the falls. After checking out the view, we decided we wanted to get closer to the falls, so we followed the road over the bridge to the other side of the river, and hiked down to the falls themselves. Check out pictures here.

The road down was pretty steep and at the bottom were stairs leading down to the water. We took our time at the lower overlook, taking lots of pictures and snacking on pepperoni rolls. (I must say, my first introduction to the WV pepperoni roll was definitely a pleasant one.)  We headed back up the steep stairs and then the hill. Suddenly I saw a woodchuck (is that the same thing as a groundhog?) scurry across the road. He was followed by two more friends, and I managed to get a picture of a couple of them.

We hiked back up to the Yellow Birch Trail and hiked the last mile or so back to the lodge. In all, we did about 7 miles in 4 hours (including breaks). It had gotten HOT out for the first time all weekend, so we felt like we had been hiking much longer. We took a scenic drive back through the mountains (with my ears popping occasionally because we were so high), along the Cheat River, and finally back to Morgantown.