Saturday, September 29, 2012

Rt. 7 to Rowlesburg

  The weekend of September 15th, Naomi and I did a short overnight on the Allegheny Trail from Rt. 7 in Preston County near Terra Also, over Briery Mountain, to Rowlesburg.  We originally set out to go all the way to Erwin southeast of Rowlesburg, but I had to cut the trip short due to an outbreak of the crud.  Naomi was definitely a good sport about it.  
 I brought my pup, blue bear, with us.  she's a german shepherd mix, just over a year old.  she took surprising well to the new doggie saddle bags I got her.  unfortunately, her new gear left her a little chafed at the end of the hike.


 So far, we've encountered a horse on each of the first two ALT treks.

 Yellow Blaze!

 Camped overnight at an undisclosed location near the newly expanded military reservation on briery mountain.  Well into the hike on our first day, we encountered a property owner who lives just east of briery mountain.  In fact, he runs a trout hatchery along the trail route.  He informed us that the trail was in the process of being rerouted away from the top of briery mountain and along the eastern side of it down to salt lick creek above Rowlesburg.  Unfortunately, while we were hiking, the reroute was not complete.  Taking our chance, we hiked the original route which took us through U.S. government property, through the military reservation and along the camping area of the Mountaineer Challenge Academy.  We encountered what appeared to be military personnel riding an ATV with a laptop affixed to the "hood" of the ATV.  He seemed to care very little that we were on government property.  Steve Shields with WV Scenic Trails Association says the reroute is underway and they expect it to be completed sometime in October.  If you hike this section, be sure to get the reroute description and map from the WV Scenic Trails Association website.
 We hiked on and camped beyond the military reservation and, as always, left no trace.
 The hike on the second day to Rowlesburg was nice and short and very pretty with early fall colors.



1 comment:

  1. Hi Sara, not sure how else to contact you so I'm going to try this. I'm writing an article about the Allegheny Trail for Highland Oudoors magazine and wondering if we could use some of your beautiful photos? I don't actually care if you actuall publish this comment -- just trying to contact you!!!

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