West Virginia wandering.

My life is in a state of chaos right now and I needed some time away from the day to day.

Decided to head to the Blackwater Falls State Park area of WV after scrolling around on onX offroad. My girlfriend and I had visited a few years ago to hike and I liked the area.

I threw a bunch of camp stuff and my recovery kit in the truck and rolled out early 9/19.
I got into Davis, WV around 10am and decided to go straight for the Lindy Point end of the Canaan Loop Rd (3/10 difficulty on onX).

Initially the weather was perfect, sunny and a reasonable temp.



That quickly changed into rain off and on.
But nothing crazy





For the most part I was comfortable with the trail. Nothing really intense but a few spots got me a little worried. Truck is stock other than going up one size from factory tires and upgrading to wildpeaks. No armor or sliders. I got the hang of planning a line and spotting with the 360 cam. I did some spotting for jeep friends years ago. 4Lo and the locker made this stuff easy.

There was a spot that I did just wing because the rain got heavy and I had a SxS waiting on me (the only other 4 wheel vehicle i saw on the road) that probably had the potential to do damage but I got through without any drama.

About 2/3 of the way through the road I came up on some motorcycles parked. Initially I thought the riders were sheltering from the rain so I parked and walked ahead to see if I could squeeze through. Turns out it was a group of retiree's and one of them laid his BMW GS1200 down and tweaked his knee pretty badly. I helped them pick the bike up and offered to haul his bags/panniers to reduce the weight he had to manage.



I ended up escorting them all the way out to where the road went back to pavement.

They wouldn't let me leave without accepting a bottle of Crown Royal they had with them.
Hope they made it home safely.

END Part 1

 

Part 2

After parting ways with the adventure bikes I drove over to the end of Canyon Rim Rd (another 3/10 difficulty on onX).

Canaan Loop was very narrow, I'm expecting some pin stripes to show up once all the road grime and mud gets washed off.
Canyon Rim was much wider, as wide as a 2 lane road in quite a few places.



About half way to 2/3 of the way into this trail/road I came across an obstacle that almost made me turn around. Wash out that had grown into a trench over the years with a steep right hand drop into a 4ft trench and ended with a steep uphill left into an off camber right complete with a lovely collection of loose rock.

I probably should've turned around, but after looking at the problem and coming up with a plan I went for it (I had cell service in this particular area).


I went slow and got out often to check my line. No drama other than dragging my mud flaps on some rocks.

It made for good photos lol

That wraps up day one pretty much.
I had planned on camping in one of the many dispersed sites in the area but realized that I forgot the footprint to my tent. Which I totally could've dealt with but it gave me an excuse to grab a warm dry room at the lodge in the park and have a burger instead of a mountain house meal.

 

Part 3

Day two was going to be light on the real offroad adventure and heavier on the covering ground side of things.

Dolly Sods was first up, pretty basic gravel and dirt road from one side of the wilderness area to the other.



Then swung by Seneca Rocks. GF and I climbed up to the observation deck the same year we went to blackwater together. No wild hikes this time around. Just a quick photo and off to the next spot.



Left Seneca Rocks and made my way towards Spruce Knob.
But first a fuel stop and another new friend.



Dude was just hanging around the gas station. He was in such good shape and had tags so I figured his people either were in the station or worked there.

Spruce Knob was next, more basic gravel/dirt park roads. But the views were pretty awesome, glad it was a clearer day.



That pretty much wrapped the trip up. I learned that hustling a tacoma through the WV backroads fast enough to not hold up the locals is a lot more work than my previous vehicle (Focus ST). I was pretty whooped by the time I made it back to NE Ohio.

Still, it was a good little trip.

Exactly what I needed.

 

nice looking truck. Good stuff

 

Awesome pics, thanks for helping the adv riders out

 

You were in my playground around Canaan... love that entire area

 

The primitive campground by spruce knob lake is awesome. Enough room between sites that you really don’t see too much of each other. Sites 26-31 are open for first come first serve. No one can make reservations on those sites so if anyone is ever up that way and you need a site for the night worth a look. Might get lucky. 13 bucks.