Hike leaders Kelly O’Rourke and Michael Seth planned a 2 day weekend to explore the southernmost terrain typical of New England wilderness - full of spruce, hemlock, bogs and ferns. CJ Woodburn organized an elaborate camp dinner of Tex-Mex dip; homemade parmesan chips; chicken, steak and veggie kabobs; and salad. Bill Holman cooked over the open flames in the fire pit that Geoff Manning-Smith had kept burning from his arrival on Thursday to his departure on Monday. We all enjoyed an amazing birthday cake from Chandler’s for CJ’s birthday, so there was no roughing it in the wilderness for us! Watoga State park allows for the choice of cabins or camping, so the couples - Kelly and Charles Staples and Susanna and John Williams - enjoyed cabin stays while Mike Smith, Geoff, CJ, Iva Gillet and Bill chose the remote campsite where we saw no one else. Mike Seth really roughed it by staying in a nearby hotel! The stars and Milky Way were impressive during the new moon and we had pleasant temperatures with just a passing shower on Saturday night.
Saturday morning we met at the Greenbrier river trail and headed to the Cranberry Glades Wilderness area that is ~ 8 miles from the Watoga State Park. All but Geoff and Bill went 9.5 miles thru the wet bogs. We also enjoyed a trail next to the Williams River. Fortunately we had taken time at the fabulous Visitor’s Center to get maps of this region that are hard to find. There was a wonderful relief map of the Monongahela National Forest and many wonderful displays.
Sunday Iva, Bill, Geoff, the Michael’s, Charles and Kelly walked the half mile boardwalk trail in the glades we saw the carnivore pitcher plants and other things that Mike Smith and Mike Seth knew the names of. Then we started on the Cowpasture Trail loop. Kelly and Charles made the whole circuit while the others turned around to get back to civilization earlier in the day. The Cowpasture trail should have been named the hemlock/crabapple/cool bridge with beaver dam trail. Kelly/Charles finished the ~ 8.5 mile loop then headed up to High Rock; a 3 mile out/back. The views would have been spectacular in better weather, as it was cloudy and mostly obscured. Monday Kelly/Charles did the very pretty Arboretum ~ 4.5 mile loop where we spotted some unusual red mushrooms that looked like Indian pipes (maybe pinedrops related to Indian pipes). We finished our tour of Watoga by going on a couple more trails in the park. We all had a wonderful weekend and look forward to doing it again, as there are many, many miles of trails in this remote, underutilized region.
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