Backpacking Dolly Sods - October 2014



Dolly Sods in early October, 2014

 

Three friends and I headed to Dolly Sods Wilderness near Davis, West Virginia recently for a weekend of backpacking and taking in the fall color.  We chose a roughly 20 mile route and planned to hike it in about 2 days, hoping that we had timed the trip with the peak of the fall colors, and I have to say the trip worked out extremely well.

The Rendezvous

Our trip plan had us meeting at the Red Creek Campground on the Northeast corner of the wilderness late on a Thursday night, so that we could get an early start on Friday.  Red Creek campground is a primitive area, with really no services save for a couple of pit toilets and maybe a dozen designated campsites with a parking pad, fire ring, and picnic table. 




Red Creek Campground near Dolly Sods -
Packed on a Thursday Night in October

Three of us arrived together on Thursday night and were surprised to find the campground completely full.  Weighing our options we decided to head back down the road a bit to some roadside camping spots rather than try to hike in under headlamp.  The latter option would have been fine, except we had a bunch of beer we needed to drink, and we were still waiting on our fourth friend to show up. 

We found a great spot a ways up the road and shortly after we had tents pitched and fire wood collected our last buddy showed up.  We had a nice little fire, told some lies, and drank some beer (a pretty common theme with us) before heading to bed.

Day 1 - Red Creek Campground to Fisher Spring Run Trail

Our route for the first day was to depart Red Creek Campground on Blackbird Knob Trail, head east and pick up Breathed Mountain Trail, which we would take to Red Creek Trail.  We'd hike south on Red Creek Trail until we got into the river bottom, somewhere around the Fisher Spring Run intersection and look for a good campsite. 


Not much to see with this fog at Dolly Sods

We had decided to get up and have our coffee and breakfast at scenic overlook at the top of the hill, just before the campground and trailhead parking.  So, in the morning we woke up and got packed up quickly and did exactly that.  We were surprised to see approximately a 1,247,692 cars at the top of the hill, with all sorts of people running around with big fancy cameras.  The weather was coming in, though, and the views were completely socked in.  I'm not sure what they were taking photos of - I could barely see the mountain laurel at my feet, let alone the long-distance view.

Since that scenic overview was crowded and not too scenic, we headed up the road and found a parking spot at the trailhead.  We had some breakfast and coffee, and took care of morning necessities ("the last civilized dump," in my buddy's terms, though I'm not sure I'd classify pit toilets in a wilderness campground as "civilized").  We noticed a hunting dog with a radio collar on roaming around looking for handouts, and thought it a bit odd (we're not from West Virginia, but had done a cursory check to verify that it was not yet hunting season for any big game).  Just then an old timer walked by and told us that it was a bear dog, trained to track and tree bears so that they could be shot by the hunter.  Then he told us that it was archery season for bears.  A little more investigation and we learned that you can't hunt bears with dogs during archery season, so we really weren't sure what that dog was doing up there without his owner.

Getting back to the hike, we headed West along Blackbird Knob trail.  As you follow this trail, you'll cross a couple of creeks before reaching the intersection with Red Creek Trail at approximately 2.1 miles from the trailhead.  There are some nice vistas (never as nice in the pictures, though... you go for the memories, not the photos) along the way. 



Those clouds looked ominous but the weather basically missed us

After about 4.5 miles you'll reach the intersection of several trails, marked by a big billboard that talks about Dolly Sods and gives some history and some wilderness guidelines.  There was also some graffiti scribbled on those signs that was talking about using bear dogs to chase the bears during mating season to keep the populations in the area down.  Hmmm...

We took a left on Breathed Mountain Trail and headed back South-easterly.  At about mile 7 we intersected Red Creek Trail.  To shorten this hike, we could have taken Red Creek Trail south from Blackbird Knob and we would have ended up here.  Going all the way across Dolly Sods (from East to West), however,  gave us a great opportunity to experience the variety of terrain for which the wilderness is so famous. 

The weather man was calling for thunderstorms, possibly severe, to roll in that evening, with the rain starting around 3 PM.  As a result we had a goal to get to a campsite and get set up before it got nasty.  It might have been that sense of urgency that allowed all four of us to look at the map and promptly turn the wrong direction on Red Creek Trail. 

Almost a mile later, after huffing it up a pretty steep incline, something didn't feel right.  I took out my compass and confirmed that we had just walked a mile in the wrong direction, and that we should turn around and go back down that big hill we had just walked up.  Oops!

The rest of the hike was uneventful.  As we got closer to the Red Creek we started to see some campsites, and finally found a great spot that was well protected from the wind that we expected to come in with the storm. 



Small Waterfall near our Camp

We set up camp, scrambled to pile up a bunch of dry firewood, and quickly gathered water from the stream.  Then we waited for the rain.  And we waited a little more.  And a little more.  The rain never did really come.  It sprinkled a little bit, and rained a bit harder overnight, but nothing close to a thunderstorm and certainly not severe. 

In the end we had an awesome night by the fire, drinking rum and telling more lies.  We also took the opportunity to soak our tired feet in the creek which, by the way, was really scenic.

Day 2 - How do you get to Lion's Head?

The next morning I was up early to poop, but I had a bunch of chores that I had to do before that could happen.  I needed to get some water and start treating it so that it would have the proper amount of time to be disinfected (I'm a bleach guy, in case you're taking a poll).  Before I could get water I needed to get the rest of my stuff (including my toilet kit) out of the bear bags which we had hung down the way.  So, I retrieved the bear bags, got some water from the creek, and then headed out to find a nice quiet spot well away from the trail and the water to do my morning paperwork.

As I'm walking off-trail with some urgency to get to my bathroom spot, I can't help but think about all the signs warning visitors about unexploded ordinance in the area.  Apparently Dolly Sods was used as target practice by our armed forces during World War II, and there are still bombs (some potentially still live!) and bomb fragments being found to this day.  Luckily the only bombs I had to deal with were my own, and after dropping them I headed back to camp to get the coffee started.

With sore feet we shouldered our backpacks and headed up the trail.  On day two our route was to re-trace our steps from yesterday back to the intersection of Rocky Point Trail, take Rocky Point around to Big Stonecoal Trail, and follow Big Stonecoal all the way back to Blackbird Knob, which we would re-trace back to the Red Creek Campground and our cars.

Rocky Point Trail earns its name

We quickly warmed up climbing up out of the creek valley and fell into a familiar rhythm.  Rocky Point Trail is about 2 miles, and it definitely earned its name.  All of the trails in Dolly Sods are a lot more "rocky" than I'm used to from other hikes in the east / Midwest.  The terrain isn't terribly strenuous as far as elevation is concerned, but the trail definitely beats you up.  I was thankful that I had opted for full leather boots over my more comfortable and typical trail runners.  I was also thankful for my trekking poles for extra balance and stability.

As we were walking along Rocky Point Trail, we also started to hear a dog howling incessantly down in the valley.  We wondered if maybe that bear dog had done its job.  The trail passed through a tight tunnel of rhododendrons and wound around a thin, rocky ledge reminiscent of hiking out west.  Extreme terrain variety within the same hundred yards.

We knew that somewhere along this trail was a side-trail to the Lion's Head, a famous and often photographed rock outcropping.  We also knew that there were few to no trail markers in Dolly Sods There's usually signs at trail intersections - they may or may not be right, but they are normally there.  There are no blazes anywhere, and trails are either obvious or marked by rock cairns.  We came across a few side trails that were marked with cairns  that probably led up to Lion's Head, but we kept passing them, hoping for a less rugged-looking approach.  Many of the first few trails we came to looked to require hands-and-feet scrambling up a pretty steep slope, and while we were willing, we also assumed that there must be an "easy" route somewhere along the trail.  We passed several and finally came to an easy looking trail that took us back in the direction of the point, where we expected to find it.  I must have hiked a mile down that side trail but found nothing but a few nice looking (but dry) campsites.  In hindsight we should have marked it on our topo... we could have used map and compass to get there.  So, if you have nice pictures of Lion's Head in Fall that I can Photoshop me and my friends into, please send them.

Nice lunch spot

Once we reached Big Stonecoal Trail we continued North, past the Dunkenbarger Trail and a very scenic waterfall.  A short while later we found a nice spot for lunch, so we stopped for a break.  We weren't in a hurry, so we had a nice long lunch, tried to eat up all of our remaining food, and tended to minor blisters and other aches. 

As we finished packing up and started to get our packs back on, we heard a whistle off in the distance, followed by some yelling.  We couldn't make out the words, but it sounded like someone calling a dog.  Three whistle blasts followed by yelling.  Two whistle blows, more yelling.  Yelling.  Three whistle blasts.  The whistles were quick, not sustained. 

In case you don't know, three of anything, and in particular three whistle blows, is the international distress symbol.  Typically the whistle blasts are sustained for several seconds each (these were quite short, less than 1 each).  Assuming someone was trying to call their dog and didn't know better (the whistle was also really shrill like a dog whistle), but knowing that it could be someone in distress, we headed back the way we came and in the direction of the whistler.  As we made our way the whistles and yells became more faint.  We tried to yell back but go no answer.  Soon the sounds stopped completely, so we turned around and went on our way.  I haven't heard any reports of any tragedies in Dolly Sods lately, so I'm guessing that our assumptions were right.  Somebody was using 3 whistle blasts to call their dog.  Don't do that, please.


Trail along one of the high plateaus

Once back on our route we made good time up to Blackbird Knob trail.  We passed a few people - more on this day than the day prior.  The weather was quite strange - alternating between sunny, sprinkling rain, sleeting, and even a bit of snow about every 10 minutes.  It was never really hot or really cold, but it was always really windy.  In all a pleasant day to be out. 

Eventually we got back to the Blackbird Knob Trail and made our final 4 mile push back to the car.  We saw a lot more people on this stretch than we had seen the rest of the trip.  It was Saturday, after all, and a fairly pleasant one as well despite the variety of weather.  We also passed three guys on horseback.  I'm not sure how they got those horses in there with the trails being as rocky as they were.  As far as wildlife is concerned, throughout the course of the trip we also saw three whitetail deer, two grouse that we flushed (grouse always scare the crap out of you when they flush), two small snakes, and a bunch of small woodland creatures (chipmunks, squirrels, etc.).  No bears, despite the bear dog. 

It's a Wrap, and Victory Beers

Once we got back to the car we had our traditional victory beers (noticing a theme here?), swapped out hiking boots for comfy shoes, dropped packs, and just milled around for a bit.  Oh, and jumped my dead car battery to get it running again.  Then we headed across the border into Maryland, found a honky-tonk bar with a hotel in the parking lot, and "camped" there for the night before heading for home in the morning.

All in all, a great trip in a beautiful location at the perfect time of year.

Want more details like our trail maps with distances, packing lists, etc.? Just post a comment below and I'll send you want you're looking for. 

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