ONAPA WV Field Trip: Part 1, Seneca Rocks and Dolly Sods

ONAPA (Ohio Natural Areas and Preserves Association) organized a field trip to West Virginia for late June, focusing on the Dolly Sods Wilderness and the Cranberry Glades Botanical Area. There were a limited number of places so Joan and I applied early.

We opted to drive out the day before, staying overnight in Elkins. We had dinner at the Forks Inn, which Joan had discovered beforehand on Tripadvisor. It was excellent and well worth driving a few miles outside of town.

The next day we had time to explore the Seneca Rocks before the trip participants rendezvoused there at 1:00pm. This is a photo I took later, in the late afternoon light. In 1943-44 the 10th Mountain Division trained in assault climbing on these vertical formations. 

Zooming in closer. The red circle at left shows where an observation deck is located, at the end of a walking trail. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

The view from the deck goes up and down the valley and into the mountains to the east.

Just beyond, they beg you to please not go any further.

Back at ground level Joan and I briefly explored the Sites Homestead.

This is the Sites house.

After all the participants trickled in we were briefed on the plan to visit Dolly Sods. Group sizes are limited to no more than ten, so our troop was split that way, but also we were carpooling because the climb from the valley to the top of Dolly Sods takes an unpaved forest road (#75) that makes it awkward to pass a car coming the other way. (Once on top it's not so bad.) We entered this map at the upper right.

Our first stop was at the 477-acre Nature Conservancy Preserve of Bear Rocks, just after cresting the top of the plateau. The name "Dolly Sods" evolved from the name of the emigrant German family that first grazed livestock there, "Dahle," and the local term for an open high-altitude meadow, a "sods."

There are various trails at Dolly Sods, both long and short, and backcountry camping is allowed with a permit.

Much of the plateau is at an altitude of about 4,000', so the winters are cold and the winds are harsh. Unsheltered areas contain many flag trees, stunted trees with branches only on the downwind side of the prevailing winds. But today, late in June, the weather was friendly.

On the first few trails we walked a short way in, losing a few feet of altitude. This small drop was enough to harbor different vegetative zones and plant species that were pointed out by our naturalists. I neglected to take pictures during this stretch of the journey.

Further south the terrain around the road was less windblown, and water had accumulated into various wet spots, ponds, and bogs. The climate has been compared to that of southern Canada. Here's a pond, but we didn't see any beavers.

Doll Sods was used as a target range during World War II, and this sign greeted us at a trailhead.

We went on anyway. Did I mention that the mountain laurel was stunning almost everywhere up here?

The path took us to a bog that could be entered on a short boardwalk and observation deck. Carnivorous sundew plants were common in the bogs and spectacular here.

A closeup. The shiny drops at the ends of the spines are sticky.

At the end of the day, heading back to Elkins, Joan and I decided to drop in unannounced at the Forks Inn. Although there was a flock of cars and trucks in the parking area they had room for us. We even sat out on the patio, the best place to relax with the green-carpeted mountains. In this photo Bickle Knob is prominent.

Tomorrow we'll head south for Day 2, at the Cranberry Glades and on several forest roads of the Monongahela National Forest.