Recap: Allegheny Mountains Loop - Hellbender Hybrid
Overview
Jay and I thought up this new adventure after our trip to ride across New York on the Erie Canal Trail was cancelled due to several of the planned group having to back out because of personal reasons. We figured we already planned on riding six days at the end of August so why don’t we try something similar yet somewhat different than our Loop de West Virginia tour we did back in May and June. That was a 650 mile 10 days of riding adventure that we absolutely loved and went so well we were anxious to do something similar. We really liked the Monongahela National Forest portion of that ride so we figured we could build a loop that included a large portion of that area. So with that in mind, I began researching and planning something I thought we could complete in six days. I came upon two routes that we combined together and developed a 360 mile loop that started and ended in Lewisburg, WV. We were able to leverage portions of the Allegheny Mountains Loop, which was developed by the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA) and Bikepacking.com’s Hellbender section of the Eastern Divide Trail. We also wanted to visit Spruce Knob so we adjusted the routes to reach that area of the Mon. Forest and visit the highest point in West Virginia. We also didn’t want to do a whole bunch of bushwacking so we rerouted the AML into Covington, Va as all the reports that I could find indicated that the route through the Lake Sherwood area of West Virginia was very challenging with significant overgrowth and downed trees.
Day 1 - Lewisburg, WV to Bath County, VA: 86 miles and 4200 feet of climbing
Our buddy Lee Scruggs was kind enough to host us again so we could start our adventure in Lewisburg, WV. After arriving on August 20th and getting a good night sleep at Lee’s house, we woke up on the 21st to significant thunderstorms and heavy rain rolling through the Greenbrier River Valley. We had a big day of riding planned but we thought it prudent to delay our start an hour or so to let the storms pass. We eventually started out and headed towards Covington, VA via White Sulphur Springs, WV though we did get rained on a couple of times but luckily they weren’t heavy thunderstorms. After eating a large helping of calories at the Double C Cafe in Covington, we headed north up the Jackson River Rail Trail towards Lake Moomaw. The Jackson River Trail is only a few years old but it is pristine and well worth a visit if you are ever in the Covington area.
We made our way around the beautiful Lake Moomaw and through the Bolar Mountain Recreational Area with our fist and only sections of nice gravel roads. Most of this day would be on remote paved country roads with very little traffic. The Bolar Mountain Recreational Area contains probably over a 100 campsites but all of them are closed this year due to upgrades to their sewage treatment plant. Because of this, there were very few cars on the roads around the recreational area and Lake Moomaw making for some very nice and relaxing riding.
We continued north along the West Virginia and Virginia borders finally arriving at our first day’s destination, the Bath County Recreational Ponds Campground. Just before arriving, we were able to stop and take a break and get some drinks at a country store at Mountain Grove, Va. Other than Covington, this was the only potential resupply option during the whole day. I don’t know if we just got lucky, but we were the only ones at the campground and it is a potential hidden gem. It only cost $10 and they have full facilities located right next to two very large and beautiful man made ponds in an expansive mountain valley. There are full restrooms with showers and electrical outlets, fresh water, a beach, boat ramp, playground, etc. I was amazed that no one else was there though it might have been that we arrived on a Sunday evening and it gets a bit more crowded on the weekends. Again, I can’t say enough good about this campground and park.
We got our tents up, ate and hit the sack early as we were pretty tired from a long day in the saddle. Once again, the rain came in during the night and early morning but we stayed dry in our tents.
Day 2 - Bath County, VA to Spruce Knob, WV: 54 miles and 5200 feet of climbing
It rained several times and there was a lot of distant thunder through the night but it luckily ended around 4:50AM. We got up, packed our bikes and rolled out at 7:30 am and pretty much climbed 100 feet per mile the entire way to our destination at Spruce Knob Lake Campground in the Monongahela National Forest. The highlight of the entire trip happened within a few miles of us leaving the campground. As we were climbing a hill, we heard a huge ruckus in the trees. It took a few seconds to figure out what was happening, but we finally realized that there was an adult black bear basically doing a controlled fall out of a tree right next to us. It was pretty cool to watch it rapidly repel down a tree then run away into the thickness of the forest. Over the years, I’ve had several encounters with black bears and most if not all of them are pretty much scaredy cats and run away from humans and this one was no different.
The sun did come out for a good portion of the morning as we continuously gained elevation riding up through several wide valleys with expansive views of western Virginia. The scenery was spectacular as we passed many old large and well maintained farms that stretched across the entire valley. We took a break at the Church at the Old Oak, which is aptly named after an enormous oak tree that is probably well over a 100 years or more old. We started off again and finally made it to the West Virginia border. As soon as we reached the top of the ridge at the border, the road pretty much turned into a cliff and for at least a mile or so we were riding downhill at -20%+ grade. This was quite the thrill as we were both trying to manage our brakes while scrubbing as much speed as possible so we could properly control our heavily burdened bikes. It was fun but after the fall I started thinking about what could have happened if a tire blew and my imagination just took off. Fortunately, we safely made it down into West Virginia enjoying the downhill fun along the way.
We finally made it to the base of Spruce Knob and started our climb of approximately 1200 feet over a few miles. Someone once told me that Spruce Knob creates its own weather patterns and guess what? Spruce Knob decided to create some torrential down pours as soon as we started climbing. At one point, it was raining so hard we just pulled over to the side of the road and stood there until the rain let off a bit. This went on for at least a half hour or so before we could start the climb again. We finally made it to the campground and actually caught a break in the rain long enough to setup camp, eat our first real meal of the day and run down to the lake and take some photos. Our plan was to get settled in, unload the bikes and then ride to the top of Spruce Knob. To be honest, we might have been looking for an excuse not to do this as it would have been about a 16 mile round trip that included additional significant climbing. Lucky for us, the mountain once again decided to bring rain our way so we had the excuse we were looking for. We both hit the sack early again and with the temperatures slowly dropping into the low sixties to upper fifties through the night it was really nice to get in the sleeping bag and just doze off.
Day 3 - Spruce Knob, WV to Parsons, WV: 49 miles and 3550 feet of climbing
Well Spruce Knob got thoroughly hydrated as it rained the entire night, but luckily it stopped about the time we got up. After packing up our soaked tents (on the outside, the insides stayed dry), we headed off to our next destination, Parsons, WV. When I made the route I did have some concern about the resupply of fresh water as there are very few stores along the route. In fact, from Covington, VA to Parsons, WV the small country store at Mountain Grove on day one was the only potential resupply we had. We did find an empty commercial campground, Back Ridge Shadows, that had a water spigot on our way up to Spruce Knob Lake Campground and were able to top off our water bottles. However, by the time we got to our campground, had our dinner and cleaned up we were concerned that we were not going to have enough water to get us to Parsons. I brought a bladder and Sawyer filter so we decided to stop at the lake and filter some water before heading out. I normally test everything before I go but for some reason I didn’t test the filter and we just couldn’t get it to work properly. So after some discussion about rationing water for the rest of the day, we headed out.
The route took us right through the heart of the Monongahela National Forest and we eventually came across the Laurel Fork Campground and we spotted a water pump. As we approached the pump, we realized that it had a lock on it so we decided to check out the rest of the campground, which turned out to be very nice. If you are ever in this area, I would recommend you consider this campground as it is in a beautiful location and the sites are very nice. As luck would have it, there were a few campers so as we rode by we just asked a couple of guys if they had some water they could spare. They were very welcoming and allowed us to top off all of our bottles so as Forest Gump’s mom used to say “One less thing”. We learned that our trail angels were both in the Air Force and since Jay is retired Army and I’m former Navy we quickly turned to making some off the cuff remarks about Marines and crayons. Off course it was all in good fun, at least from a veterans perspective.
Interesting note. They were up from North Carolina and Florida doing some heavy duty four wheel drive overlanding and they mentioned that they had just completed the Canaan Loop Road Adventure and Olson Tower Loop road the previous day . Both of those routes are identified on the OGG website and would certainly be challenging in a four wheel drive. One of their trucks had one of its running boards ripped off on the Olson Tower Loop so that gives some idea of how difficult they can be for a vehicle.
The remainder of the route didn’t let us down as we climbed at least four mountains through low hanging clouds on our way to Parsons. Unfortunately, we started to experience mechanical issues during this day as Jay had one flat tire and I had two. Mine occurred within a mile of the Five River Campground in Parsons. We were on the Allegheny Highlands Rail Trial that runs from Hendricks, WV to Elkins, WV. We picked it up in Hendricks and was riding it for a few miles to get into Parsons. This portion of the trail is paved but it has a lot of organic trash on it and I ran over a branch or something that punched a hole in my rear tire. I plugged it and limped into the campground but as soon as I got to the campground my front tire sprung a leak but luckily it sealed itself.
We setup camp and rode into town to resupply at the Dollar General and got a huge meal at Mr. Pizza, which was excellent. Unfortunately, the plug in my rear tire pulled out and I had to abandon the tubeless setup and install one of the two tubes I brought with me. We set up our tents at a beautiful location right down on the Cheat River and had our first dry evening and night.
Day 4 - Parsons, WV to Elkins, WV: 29 miles and 1800 feet climbing
We woke up to a beautiful day and an excellent weather forecast, which predicted blue skies and no rain for the remainder of our ride back to Lewisburg, WV. We were refreshed after having a good meal the night before, the ability to take showers at the camp and a nice relaxing sleep next to the babbling Cheat River. The future looked great and we started our day with a hearty breakfast at McDonalds and an invigorating climb out of Parsons before dropping onto an amazing gravel road that follows the Shavers Fork river for 15+ miles. This may be my favorite gravel road yet. The road is mostly well maintained, surrounded by lush forest and meanders back and forth with the river all the way up to Rt. 33 near Elkins, WV. We saw one car on the entire road so it was just a nice relaxing and quiet ride in the middle of a whole lot of nature.
Then everything started to go wrong. My rear tire exploded letting out a huge bang that sounded like a shot gun. I pulled over and started the the tire changing process that has become all too familiar lately. While I was working on my tire, Jay noticed that he was starting to have a slow leak on the same tire that went flat the day before so he started working on his as well. Once I got my tire off, I noticed that the whole in the tire had started to increase in size so a small rock must have hit the whole just perfectly and punctured the tube. I also started to take a good look at the inside of the tire to make sure there were no other problems and noticed that there was a tear starting on the inside of the tire. I was able to boot both the hole and the tear with Gorilla Tape and I put my last tube in the tire. I felt the tire was at least useable for a while but I didn’t have any more spare tubes and was significantly concerned about the tear.
Just as I was finishing up, Jay got his rear tire off of his bike and realized that the clincher bead was starting to tear off. It was a small tear but it sure looked like it had the potential to continue to grow especially with the weight of his fully loaded bike and the distance we still needed to cover over the next two and a half days. After evaluating our situation with both of us having suspect tires, limited spare tubes and getting ready to go back into some very remote sections of the Mon. Forest, we made the very difficult decision to abandoned our plan and head into Elkins, WV, which was only about six miles away. Once we got near Rt. 33 we finally got cell service so we called Lee Scruggs and told him about our predicament and made the choice to have Lee come and get us. This was very difficult and we hated to do it, but we just didn’t think it was going to be wise to go back into the remote mountains with limited communication capabilities and risk having our tires fail.
Joey’s bike shop is in Elkins, but as with our recent luck it is closed every Wednesday, which is the day we arrived. It was going to take Lee five to six hours to get to Elkins from Lewisburg as he was busy running some errands so Jay and I found a local watering whole named Jimbo’s Place and I started to drink my sorrows away in the an effort to improve my damaged psyches. Joking aside, even though we had to cut our six day ride down to four we still had a great adventure and a lot fun regardless of the mechanical and weather challenges. As our local bike shop owner Walt says, that is why they call it an adventure.
We can’t thank Lee Scruggs enough for hosting us and coming to rescue us. He is an amazing person and we are lucky to have such a great friend.
Equipment
I’m not going to describe our equipment in detail as you can get an in depth listing by visiting the Loop de West Virginia recap. However, both Jay and I made some adjustments to our equipment based on the Loop de West Virginia tour.
Jay removed his rear rack and went with a Revelate seat bag and he also added some fork bags for additional storage. After the trip, Jay mentioned that he may go back to his rack with a setup similar to mine to help limit movement on the rear of the bike. He may also rework the fork bag cages as the ones he used were plastic and he experienced some movement and challenges keeping them tightly latched to his forks.
I kept my rear rack but traded out my Specialized Burra Burra seat bag that I strapped to the top of the rack for a 20L Sea to Summit Big River Dry Bag. This worked out amazingly as I was able to put everything I need inside my tent at night in the bag in addition to my Helinox Chair. The bag even comes with lashing loops that work perfectly with two Voile Straps. It is also oval in shape so it sits nicely on the top of the rack and never moves even on the roughest of terrain. You can get the bag and straps for around $50 bucks, which is significantly cheaper than a seat bag from one of the common manufacturers. The bag did experience some abrasion against the rack so the next time I’ll just put a piece of kitchen cutting sheet underneath it to provide a buffer and limit the abrasion. I also used Wolftooth’s B-Rad mounting bases to mount two water bottle cages to my front forks. My generation of Specialized Diverge does not come with the water bottle/cage mounting bosses that the latest version has so the B-Rads have the ability to leverage two bosses that are available but not spaced correctly for a water bottle cage or a utility cage.