Cycling West Virginia: Prince to Paw Paw

2024-06-18

Day 0 6/2/24 11 miles. Amtrak was fine no hiccups. Got to Prince at 6:45pm. Got to stone Cliff campground at 9pm.

Beautiful roads very quiet. Stunning sunset with fog. Fireflies!

Campsite has like 3 different parties camping. Derailleur acting up for biggest gear. Will try to fix tomorrow.

Day 1 Mile 48, 37 miles. Rainy morning. I slept in til 8:15am. Made oatmeal. Left around 9:45am.

First 10 miles were killer. Babcock State Park was nice. Got some ice cream at the gift shop.

Met 2 mean dogs. Had to spray them with water. Met a nice dog who followed me for 45m.

At mile 48, 37 miles today.

Day 2 -6/4/24 Mile 88, 40 miles today

Morning was brutal. Lots of hike a bike, maybe like 4 miles. Then big gravel climbs. Neverending. Somehow broke 2 water bottle cages

Finally made it to richwood, wv. Loaded up on food at marts and dollar general.

Big climb out of town to Monogahela national forest. Then huge descent.

Got to big rock campground at 5:20pm

Took socks off at camp and my toes were all wrinkly. Probably because I crossed a stream in the morning. I should check the next dollar general for flipflops.

Day 3 - 6/5/24 Mile 130, 42 miles Started raining heavily. Had a nice chat with guy at campground who couldn't believe I was going up dogway mountain. I was having fun in the rain, not so bad and nice slow climb. Stopped at shelter for turkey sub and apple (bought yesterday).

Rain let up and I had a great climb up the mountain for next 3 hrs or so. I got to the 3 miles of unmaintained single track (pochahantas trail) and went for it. I should not have. It was miserable and it started pouring again. Let this be a lesson. I got to road with coal mine workers. Big uphill, it started pouring and Garmin glitched out.

Made it to the top and fixed Garmin (take out and put back sd card). Then a huge descent that would have been fun if it wasn't raining. I was exhausted and had to walk up the next hills to arrive at droop mountain state park around 6:30pm. No camping here only day use. Went to use first bathroom I see and I hear it start pouring even more as rain hits the roof. I get out and run my bike into a picnic shelter.

Laid out all my clothes to "dry". Might try to stealth camp here. There's actually an outlet that works here under this shelter. Time to charge up.

Feet are destroyed since they've been drenched since the single track.

Day 4 6/6/24 168, 38 miles. Poured all night.didnt sleep that well. Poured in the morning so I stayed in bed an extra hour.

Descend to Greenbriar river trail (GRT). Nice. Easy riding to jacks corner, burger and salad. Had a nice chat with man about biking (he saw my bike). Easy riding to marlinton.

Loved marlinton, did laundry. Got pizza 2nd lunch. Loaded up at IGA and dollar store. Met man in parking lot who told me the scoop about camping in town for 7 days for free and getting a shower. Seemed like a homeless type vibe. Bike shop guy gave me a discount on a water bottle cage because he was working the computer for other customer and made me wait 1 min to checkout lol .

I left town and went to GRT. Saw man from jacks corner with his family riding bikes. Made it to campsite. Took a bath in river and changed into clean clothes! Maybe bought too many groceries.

Day 5 - 6/7/24 195 , 27 miles. Went to bed at like 9pm last night, woke up at 7am exhausted still. Couple easy miles on GRT. Hard day idk why. Big climb in Seneca state Forest to fire tower overlook. Big fun flowy single track on Allegheny trail down. Kinda eh boring country roads to green bank observatory. Nice quiet double/single track after, but not too hard.

Got to hosterman trail bridge near 4pm. Decided to stop here. Will try to do 25ish miles tomorrow as a rest day.

Guy pulled up at 5 ish and said don't mind me just going for a walk. When he got back at 5:30 I asked if I could camp here, he said yeah no one will be here or bother you. Then we chatted about outdoors/nature. Nice dude, clearly super introverted, said he worked for the train here.

Day 6 -6/8/24 Mile 234, 39 miles,

Felt like I slept in but when I checked the time, it was 7:15am. Cooked big breakfast, oatmeal with craisins, pecans, and bananas in it.

Started huge climb up cheat mountain. Honestly wasn't that bad. Felt easier than climb to fire tower yesterday. Maybe because the grade was easier today. Beautiful forest roads, saw nobody.

Came down and had funny conversation with 2 dudes. "Do you know where you're going?" Yup I came from new river gorge... Headed to Maryland ... Etc "Wow you're crazy" "Do you have a gun?" No "You know there's bears out here right?" Yup Hahahah

Started to see a lot of people out and about on shavers fork and forest road 227, todays saturday. Most dispersed campsites occupied by ppl with their trailers/RVs. felt good so I kept cranking it. The rear hub does not sound good. Hope it can make the 70 miles to Davis bike shop. I don't want to go to Elkins even though that bike shop is closer. Would require a big off route trip and it would be highway riding.

Kept going until 3pm and then turned down a national forest road with a gate that was closed to motor vehicles. Now I'm chilling hope everything feels good tomorrow. Maybe I can do a chill 35 mile including off route resupply to Stuart recreation area.

Did not do the rest day as planned lol. Later that night at like 8pm im in the tent and I hear a car pull up. "Anybody in there?" Yeah what's up? "Ok just checking"

I camped like 50 feet down a side road. Maybe I should've gone a bit farther to be out of sight.

Day 7 6/9/24 Mile 266, 36 miles Felt like I slept in, but checked time when I hit the road and it was like 8:15am. Guess my body is getting up earlier and earlier. Very foggy morning. Off and on rain. Then hot. Riding kinda eh, nothing special. Also I was super tired.

Got to strip mall 2 miles off route at like 11:30am??. First hit Walmart, bought some groceries and flip flops! Wish I had some earlier the days when it poured. Nice to have at camp.

Then Sheetz for an Italian to go. Then Burger King for lunch. 2 bacon double cheeseburgers. Had a brief chat with other customer who saw me park my bike outside. He told me wv sure is beautiful and he's right. And I take a long lunch break from 12-1. Then I rejoined route and did the 8 miles to Stuart recreation area and got here at 2:15pm

33$ for campsite?? Kinda steep. But I took a shower and feel good now. Also nice to have flipflops for shower.

Would like to do 39 miles tomorrow to Davis. Then take a 0 day on Tuesday. Hopefully can get the bike fixed up there. We'll see what tomorrow morning brings.

Day 8 - 6/10/24 Mile 305, 39 miles. Woke up at 6:45 and peed. But it felt cold so I went back to bed for an hour. Road wound around the river, nice gravel. 10 miles later the route diverged into the fernow experimental forest. I initially went up it for like 10 min then decided to go back and stick to the easier gravel for the 6 miles or so. There was a warning on the route for rocky climb further up and I wanted to save the effort for once. trying to learn my lesson from the pochahantas trail disaster. Road to Parsons was pleasant enough. Then a cool bridge and into the blackwater canyon trail. Almost 10 miles of slowly climbing single track. Very beautiful had the whole trail until the end to myself. Forced my way uphill and past Thomas to Davis. Went to the bike store and they fixed my hub and lubed my chain for 15$ labor nice. And they gave me some good bike advice for the future. My bike is pretty messed up but should last until the end of this trip at least. Then when to little Caesars and ate an entire pepperoni pizza in one sitting. at fast food places like that they have the calories listed on the menu and i think i just ate 2300 calories. Then came to rest rite campground. The lady gave me a discount for only 15$ tonight. I think I want to stay here again tomorrow and take a rest day.

Day 9 -6/11/24 Rest day. Laundry, shower, grocery store. Also did 8 miles r/t to check out a trail with a nice overlook.

Day 10 - 6/12/24 Mile 352, 32 miles Decided to skip part of route and ride highway for 3-4 miles instead. Then entered dolly sods. Big climb up to top. Got some water at red creek campground.

Got to bear rocks overlook and then started descent. 5 min later found gated forest road. Went down it and got here at like 1:45. It's kinda the perfect campsite but I only did like 32 miles today. So then I went back and forth for an hour about whether to stop or keep going. And now it's 3 and I think maybe I should've kept going. But for now I'll stop. I think too much about these decisions. But it is a nice spot and I have service here

Day 12 Mile 395, 43 miles Yeah probably should've kept going yesterday. Because when I got to McGuiness to resupply it was closed because it was like 8am. If I went there at 3pm yesterday it would have been open. And it turned out there was a lot of public land in the spruce knob/Seneca rocks area. Duh. Oh well. I don't think I ate enough today and I don't have enough water at camp to make freeze dried food? Or maybe I should and just skip oatmeal breakfast tomorrow. Today was tough. Walked a lot and it was hot. Super sunny and not much shade. At 3pm I turned off road and went into forest. Idk if this is a good spot. But I'm exhausted and dehydrated and low on water. 4 miles uphill tomorrow and then 2 down hill before water. That's a guess from the map. poor planning by me. Hopefully I can hit the grocery store tomorrow and also only do 35 miles hahaha dang I'm slow.

Day 13- 6/14/24 Mile 434, 39 miles Last night I made freeze dried lasagna. It was good. Didn't have oatmeal this morning due to water. It was pretty hot by 8am already. Got to Peru at like 9:30am spent time filtering water and hanging out. Then buzzed the general store owners to open the store. They live next to the store and have a bell you can ring. Had nice brief chat, unfortunately food picking was slim. Bought some Ritz crackers and Hershey's chocolate bars. Saw a bear in the woods but it ran away. Cranked up the mountain easy. Then 15ish chill miles to misty valley store. This part goes past chicken farms and smells horrible. I remember it from TransVA route i did on previous trips, it uses the same road for a couple miles. Went big and bought snacks and two sandwiches at store. Had a break to eat one, then kept going. More farm roads and then very slowly turned into national forest? I stopped seeing "no trespassing" signs and saw a little path into the woods with a fire pit in the clearing so I turned down it and kept going and set up camp. Got here around 4ish. But I took a big hour break at 9:30am and another break at 2:30pm at the sandwich place.

Day 14 -6/15/24 Mile 476, but only did 30 miles

Big climb out of George Washington national forest. Some of the forest looked like it had been burned like in a forest fire. But maybe it was intentional because only one side of the road. Not sure if I was in national forest last night camping but no big deal, it was a good place to stop. Coming out of the national forest south of wardensville was interesting. Suddenly the view opened up and bam, big hill with the highway. Got into wardensville and bought some snacks and bananas and some tacquitos at the 7/11. The tacquitos were actually super good. But I wanted more food to eat and also for dinner. Kept rolling and saw a BBQ stand but passed it. Found kerrs grocery store on Google maps. An actual store! Since a couple days ago I had a list on my phone of what I was craving. Ended up leaving with big bag of grapes, 2lb tub of of yogurt and 2 premade sandwiches. I went to the park to break and feast. Ate a lot of grapes and yogurt. Then I decided to skip the little 15mile loop on the route south of wardensville and head for hawk recreation area more directly. It was like 3pm when I left the park and it was sunny and hot. Had to do some hill climb on a busy road. I stopped at turn offs like every 5m to rest. Finally reached forest road. It was still hot and I was exhausted but now I could relax. Made it hawk recreation camp and there were like 6 out 15 sites taken. way busier than i expected. I rolled around the circle and found the water pump but it was out of service. I asked the couple next to it if there were any other pumps and they said no, but the guy offered to give me some water. At first I said no because I felt awkward but then he was like are you sure? And I said ok if u have extra. Anyways he ended up filling up my 2L hydropak. thank you to Fred and Joy. I set up camp and ate my grapes and yogurt. Laid down in the tent and it was so hot. I had to get up and move the tent when the shade moved. Later another couple showed up and set up in a site accross from mine. Later the guy approached me and asked if I was bike packing and we had a great chat. They were there for one night from Pennsylvania. The problem with staying in campsites with other ppl is that they make noise still at 9pm when I want to go to sleep. Also their presence makes me embarrassed to piss in the bush next to my tent so I had to make the 2min walk to the bathroom.

Day 15 - 6/16/24 Mile 527, but took shorter route for 43 miles Made some oatmeal. Last night I was messing with OsmAnd and it gave me a 43 miles route to pawpaw where as Geoff's route was 50 miles. So I decided to follow OsmAnd's. I had a hard time getting the gpx out of the app but what worked was "sharing" the track with termux and then moving the gpx from the termux storage to normal phone storage. Then I used the USB c sd card reader to move it to the Garmin. Ended up working flawlessly. The days riding was fine. It was a Sunday so maybe that helped to keep traffic low because I'm sure Geoff's route used even less trafficked roads, but mine was fine. Up until the end highway. Super hot and sunny all day. Stopped at park at capacon bridge to eat sandwich from yesterday in the park at 11am. Got to slatesville and bought Gatorade and pizza slice and took an hour break at 12:30pm. Still super hot. Then had a moderate climb north where I took a break every 5minutes for awhile. Until finally hit the highway section. This part I could've followed Geoff's route but my way would save 5 miles. It was a 55mph 2 lane road with tiny shoulder at points. There was like 2miles of uphill then a mostly huge downhills to paw paw. With some intermittent uphills that I took breaks before grinding out. Finally got to paw paw and went to gas station / general store. First I bought some ice cream plus snacks. But then from chilling inside eating for 30min I noticed other customers ordering sandwiches so then I got one too. Thought about going to a Bed and Breakfast run by a local biker, but decided to go to purslane run c&o free campsite. Rolled up at 4pm, only one here. Went down to the river to wash but there were a lot of river users, canoeing etc so I didn't do a full naked wash. Just wash the legs, then arms and armpits with my underwear on the whole time. Now I feel good. Had a primal scream when I first rolled up to the campsite in victory.

Day 16?? 24 miles? Woke up late. It was already hot. Got biking at 10am. Tried to go to schoolhouse kitchen but it's closed on Mondays. Get to Cumberland around 2pm. Eat Sheetz fruit salad and pack burger. I wanted to hang out in the Sheetz AC and charge my phone and use their wifi, but this Sheetz didn't have places to sit in it. some other sheetz are bigger inside and have tables and chairs. So I packed the burger and headed to KFC accross the street. Ordered a chicken sandwich then hung out for 2.5 hours. The KFC seemed to be optimized for drive through and mobile pickup only. They didn't have that many tables inside and there was big open space in the middle of the restaurant. But I dragged over a little table to the one wall outlet I saw. Left KFC at like 5 and went to campsite. It's 92 out. This campsite is also next to rail yard so there's a ton of noise. Don't think I'll sleep much tonight. But I hope I don't miss the Amtrak tomorrow at 9:30am.

Day 17 -6/18/24 4 miles to Amtrak station. God it was hot last night. And didn't sleep well due to train noise. Woke up at 6:30am and had alarms set for 7am just in case. Ate some tortilla and Nutella since I ate all the oatmeal yesterday. Then packed up and rode into town. It was already hot. Went through a slightly rough part of Cumberland that had some homeless people. Rolled up to the Amtrak station at like 8:20, train at 9:30. The station was locked so I sat outside. Right after I pulled up a white van dropped off 4 black dudes. They literally got out of prison that morning. One of them asked to use my phone and I said yes. Then I texted the address of the station to a number he gave me. Then the other 3 took turns calling people. They were nice but my first instinct was oh shit they could steal my phone. That was just an instinctual thought they never gave signs of it. Never felt unsafe or anything. 2 of them got picked up in cars sometimes over the next 40 minutes. The other two had bus tickets to Baltimore. We got chatting, I told them about biking 500 miles through wv. I showed one of them all the pictures I took. And we chatted about the outdoors and camping and the national forest and the bear I saw. They told me about a bit about prison but I didn't really pry. One of them just got out from 5 years in federal prison in West Virginia. He kepting saying FCI so i was kinda curious which one in WV, but I didn't ask. Then their bus came and they thanked me and shook my hand/dapped me up. Not a bad experience at all, something that would never happen to me if I didn't travel like this