The Rohrbaugh Overlook: The Uncrowded Dolly Sods

 

To tell the truth, I'd begun to get bored by the legendary Dolly Sods--with its boggy trails, its open meadows, its rocks, and its mud, mud, mud.  I don't think I've ever been to Dolly Sods when it didn't rain, and when the place was not crawling with people from DC.  But then I learned about the Rohrbaugh Overlook, and I decided to give Dolly Sods another chance--a solo trip this time.

Bonner Mountain Road is a far sight better to travel in on than Lanesville Road--which is little more than a glorified, 8-mile long driveway with blind curves and steep drops and no guardrails.  The scenery is prettier on Bonner Mountain Road, too.

This is an overlook that sits right beside Forest Road 75, the main route along the eastern edge of the Sods.  I'd always seen cars parked along this part of the forest road, but it never occurred to me to stop and investigate why.  But this time, I came armed with a hiking guide book for the Monongahela National Forest, and it said that there's an overlook here where you can see all the way into Virginia.  Funny the things you can miss with years of visits and revisits...

This time around, I left Pittsburgh on a Friday at about 1:00pm.  I knew that darkness would fall at about 5:30, so I scuttled as fast as I could and reached the Fisher Spring Run Trail by 4:05.  I had a little more than an hour of rapidly fading light to find a campsite, hang the bear bag, and get a fire going.  I didn't make it to the Rohrbaugh Overlook until Sunday...but look at the beauty of it!  

Strangely, this part of the Sods--unlike the more visited reaches to the north--had very few places to camp.  When I entered the forest at the trailhead, I assumed I'd reach a campsite within minutes.  That's just the way things are up in the northern parts--campsites lining every creek, under the eaves of every evergreen grove, on the edge of every meadow.  But there weren't any established campsites for a very long time on that trail.  (Forest etiquette in the Sods is to use existing sites rather than building new fire rings.)  I finally found a suitable spot on the far side of Fisher Spring Run--maybe a mile from my car, maybe a little further.

This is another view of the valley of Red Creek from the Rohrbaugh Overlook.  Even here, there are very few campsites--but note to future self: there are some sweet ones, and a nice little creek 7 minutes away.  If this view were located two miles further north, it would be crawling with hipsters from Arlington and Bethesda.  Here, in the lesser-visited parts of the Sods, I only encountered two other hikers in two days, a couple who camped together near the overlook.

The upland meadows here are manmade.  They were carved out of the forest decades ago to provide places for deer and bear and other woodland creatures to graze and find pasture.

The fog was so thick that I feared there would be no view at all from the overlook.  But in the end the mists added to the beauty of the place.

Under less hurried circumstances, I'd have searched longer for a campsite that I liked better--though I discovered the next day that I was fortunate to get the one I got, since there were no others for a very long time.  The first night was perfect.  It fell fast all around me.  The gloaming faded quickly to the west and a lovely quarter moon rose to replace it.  It was Dolly Sods in a way that I had never experienced it before: alone both at camp and on the trails and without all the signature moors that make the place so popular.  There was plenty of rain, but a rainy day in the woods is better than a sunny day under fluorescent lights.