Wild and Wonderful!

We realized a few weeks ago that we were long overdue for a camping trip - it had been over a year since our last camping experience (if you don't count setting up the tent in the basement with our friends and their 3 year old!).  So, Memorial Day weekend we set out to enjoy the wild and wonderful state of West Virginia.  The only planned part of the trip was to ride the Cass Scenic Railroad so we stayed nearby Cass on Friday night. 

I wish we would have taken pictures of our campsite the first night.  We snagged the last local campground that you could reserve in advance, without really reading the details.  Turns out, the campsite was the highest altitude campground in West Virginia - Spruce Knob Lake.  We got a bit spooked as we drove up the mountain at night through a canopy of trees, not really knowing what to expect when we got there.  But, it may have been my favorite campground of all time.  No roads nearby to hear cars at night, cool mountain air, and campsites far enough away from each other than you could barely see camping neighbors.  We built a fire, laughed at forgetting to bring water and for not having a clue we'd be so far from civilization, and wished we had booked it for 2 nights!

The Cass Railroad was pretty cool.  Its an old steam engine that was built in the early 1900s to haul lumber from the surrounding forests.  Today, the steam engine carries passengers into the mountains and up a super steep grade (at times 11%) to Bald Knob (altitude 4842 ft).   The day turned out to be a beautiful one, and the views from the train were pretty awesome!

Stopping 1/2 way up the mountain at Whittaker Station



So many mountains in the view!



Crazy viewing platform at Bald Knob

Ahhh, vacation!

That night we didn't have a campsite reserved, and actually got a bit panicked as we realized how full most of the campgrounds were.  We ended up at a campsite near Seneca Rocks, WV.  Its a big area of rock climbing, and the campground was basically a huge park where you could set up a tent anywhere.  Lots of music listening, beer drinking, hippie climber types.  Not anything like the first night, but it turned out much better than expected.  The pub next to the campground had great views of Seneca Rocks from our table:

The next day we set out for Blackwater Falls state park.  When I was in highschool, my friend Becky's parents took us on a ski trip to WV and on the way back insisted that we had to see Blackwater Falls.  It was quite a sight to see in the snow.  Although one of my favorite memories of the trip was Becky's dad pulling out a photo of he and her mom climbing on the falls when they froze over one crazy cold winter years ago.  That memory has stuck with me through the years, and I was really excited to show Mike the falls and see more of the park in the summer time.  It was mostly just how I remember it, but without the snow!

What I didn't know on my first visit is that this waterfall is the start of a huge canyon (also listed in our book "50 greatest things to see in the DC area").  We're thinking we need to head back in the fall to see the canyon when the leaves turn colors:

The park had just about the oddest combination of landscape we've seen all in one place.  We hiked through aspen trees with waterfalls, then through almost tropical foliage, and into pine forests. 

After our hike, we drove home to relax on Memorial Day before starting another work week.  This weekend was the opening of our neighborhood pool, so we embraced the 90+ degree temperature and relaxed at the pool all afternoon.  Definitely made us both miss our pool in Tempe a bit, but its definitely a pretty good substitute.  I have a feeling we'll be visiting it pretty often this summer!