I decided that I wanted to start this journal while on our last camping trip. Over Labor Day weekend, we decided to camp with our friend Sue at Seneca Shadows campground in the Seneca Rocks area of West Virginia. The camping experience wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great either. The weekend was very humid, and either hot or rainy. We even had some scary thunderstorms.
I really find it interesting that the weekend weather reports from Friday can change so drastically by Sunday. We were supposed to have a chance of afternoon thunderstorms Saturday and Sunday. That held pretty well on Saturday. We had to hurry back to our campsite before lunch due to a thunderstorm that popped up while we were at the Seneca Rocks Discovery Center. We made a sandwich lunch under the canopy, and retreated to the car when the thunder and lightning got close. But after it passed, we had a rain-free campfire dinner. On Sunday, however, the rain threatened closer to dinner. The first thunderstorm thankfully stayed on the other side of the mountain. We got some rain and could hear the thunder and see lighting flashes, but it move northeast along the mountain ridge. We were finishing with dinner when more thunderstorms began to roll in on top of us. No s’mores for us. We spent most of the evening reading in the car, wondering if the weather would let up. It didn’t. It continued to thunderstorm through the night and was still raining the next morning.
I thought it was a pretty good idea to have a crank radio with us, just in case we needed news or weather. But it ended up being useless. The radio works fine, if there are radio stations to listen to. I couldn’t find any. While we were holed up in the car, I tried to find some on the car radio as well. No wonder the crank radio didn’t work. There was only one FM station available, and it wasn’t coming from anywhere nearby. The only weather news we were able to get before turning it off in disgust was that rain from Tropical Storm Lee was on its way. But we weren’t getting rain from Lee yet. During the day, no AM stations were available. Sunday night my car was able to pick up several AM stations, but I gave up on those pretty fast when I realized one of them was from California.
A good lesson learned was to find out about the area where you are camping before you go! I knew that Spruce Mountain farther south was in the National Quiet Zone, but I had no idea how far the zone extended. Yep, we were camping within the National Quiet Zone. So in addition to not having radio stations, our cell phones didn’t work either. At least we were within walking distance of the few businesses that made up the Seneca Rocks area, in case of an emergency.
Enough about the weather and lack of technology. The real event I wanted to talk about is our hike up Seneca Rocks. Since it was so hot, we tried to get up early on Sunday to take the hike up to the observation platform. The hike was 1.5 miles up to the platform, with an elevation change of 1,000 feet.
We got started early enough that we saw a few climbing groups and fishermen in the parking lot also getting started. But the heat and humidity were already bad. Thankfully we didn’t meet too many people on the way up, except for the guy insanely jogging back down. Being out of shape and pregnant made the hike hard. I had to take a lot of breaks and was winded the whole way. I kept wondering if I was actually going to make it to the top, and whether or not I was going to hurt myself and/or the baby. A few days before the hike, I had begun to wonder if I was getting a little bit short of breath due to pregnancy. So I hoped that being winded was normal, that hiking was good exercise, and as long as I took it slow, baby and I would both be fine.
Luckily there were a lot of neat things to see on the hike to make it enjoyable - different trees, mosses, mushrooms, rocks, and bugs. When we got to the platform, we had a magnificent view of the valley below. Sadly, we couldn’t see the rest of the Seneca Rocks formation, and I was too pooped to venture farther up. Soon after we arrived at the top, another hiker showed up with a pink travel size ukulele on her back. She sat down and played a bit, which was really cool.
The hike down was a little bit easier, but as Sue pointed out, more treacherous. I slid a few times on the steep gravel path, but luckily didn’t hurt myself. We passed several groups on their way up, and Sue let them know how much farther they had to go and gave them words of encouragement.
Overall, it was a good experience, and I’m glad that I made it to the top. Baby Hoop, you’ve been on Seneca Rocks!
View from the observation platform at Seneca Rocks. More pictures at http://hooppics.shutterfly.com/11782.
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