Last Adventure of the Year: The Dunkenbarger Loop

 

My relationship with Dolly Sods Wilderness Area, in the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia, has gone a little something like this: 1) I can't wait to go discover that place!  I've heard so much about it.  2) That was great; I can't wait to go back.  3) Why's it always so wet, and why are there always so many people, and maybe I'll start going to lonelier spots--like Otter Creek.

But it's hard, in the end, to resist the call of the fall and the lure of those mountaintop meadows.  This time around, I decided to do another lesser-visited part of the Sods known as the Dunkenbarger Loop.  It has two merciless stream crossings that tend to cull the hiker herd.  And even on Thanksgiving weekend, I had to take off my boots, roll up my pant legs, and slog ever-so-slowly over slippery rocks and through the painfully frigid water.

Oh, but it was worth it to get to the other side, where at least I could be forgiven for believing that I had the entire planet to myself.  This is the hard-to-reach Dunkenbarger Run, a dark, silent, fast-moving stream with tea-colored water (from the hemlock tannins).  It was a perfect spot to aim for on that first night: exactly 3 miles from my car, solitary, and pretty.

I got to Dunkenbarger Run at 4:30pm, which in November, is just before dark.  I had to scuttle to collect firewood, hang the bear bag, and put up the tent before dark.  Ah, but look at the moon rising over my ephemeral woodland home.  

On the way toward another brutal stream crossing, the following day, I came across the large and lovely campsite that was described in my guidebook.  This one is on Big Stonecoal Run.  Look at all that flat terrain, that cushiony, pine-scented turf, the sandy brook in the near distance.

This is the view from under the pines at the large campsite on Big Stonecoal Run.  Sublime.

After another bitterly cold crossing of Red Creek, barefoot, I chanced upon this wonderful spot on a bluff overlooking the creek.  The rock formations on the distant ridgeline are the Rohrbaugh Overlook, described below in an earlier post.  This is the valley that was wrapped in gray mist when I was above.

Someone has put a lot of effort into making this campsite nice, and I imagine that they're regular visitors here.  Note the railing at the edge of the bluff--which guards against a 15 foot drop onto the rocky banks below.  Again, the moon is rising above my campsite.  See the reflection on the waters of the stream.

That night was COLD!  I've never been so cold at camp, not even when I woke up to 22 degrees in the Allegheny National Forest on my last birthday.  See how all things are covered in a thin layer of hard frost!  I woke up at about 3:30am and put on just about every piece of clothing I brought, and I still shivered in my bag.

It takes the sun a long time to reach these valleys, too.  The day got as warm as 52 degrees, but not until it had exacted its toll on the ill-prepared hiker.  In another sense, I was well prepared.  I remembered that the weekend of Thanksgiving is a very popular time for hunting deer, so I bought a fluorescent orange hoodie to make myself seen.  None of the other hikers I encountered were wearing orange, and I didn't hear a single gunshot.  Maybe because, although hunting is allowed at the Sods, motorized vehicles are not, and no one wants to drag a dead dear over this terrain.  Most hunters use those golf cart-like buggies known as "gators." 

This is ice in the Nalgene water bottle that I left outside the tent.