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Austin summers suck. So I left.
With covid opening up remote working opportunities in 2020, I decided that I should spend my 2021 summer somewhere a little less...sweaty. Without diving too much into my life story, I grew up in West Virginia, and my family still lives in Morgantown, the "Austin" of WV. After living in Texas for three years (at that point), I had really come to appreciate the mountainous, mysterious nature of WV. So, loaded up my Yamaha Tenere 700, and headed for Appalachia.
Made my way through Dallas, Little Rock and onto Nashville. Obviously I had to stop by Country Hall of Fame and Hattie B's Chicken. These two (arguably) define the sound of appalachian bluegrass
Stayed the night just outside of town and then it was time for Tail of the Dragon. It didn't disappoint, something like 317 turns in 11 miles? I definitely lost count.
(Yeah, sorry, I'm not paying for these pictures, but look at that form
)
But god ****, it's exhausting...by 5 miles in, I was almost getting sick. Not to mention being fully loaded up on e07's, not exactly corner shredding tires. As always, having Texas plates on a Tenere 700 lead to some interesting friends, I ended up meeting a couple guys on an Africa Twin and KTM790 that they said they knew some more "adventurous" roads that ran through the mountains.
We found some good dirt roads, nothing too exciting until we saw a car up ahead stopped for a Black Bear crossing the road. We froze, prepared to clumsily turn around as fast as humanly possible. The car started honking, we started waving frantically and begging them to stop. The bear shrugged and continued off the side of the road.
Decided to stay in Johnson City, Tennessee, because of course. Eventually I made it through to southern West Virginia, and to the newest National Park! New River Gorge, with a bridge to match. Did I mention my fear of riding across bridges?
This NP is particularly special to me because of the couple times I've been white-water rafting here, which goes underneath at the bottom of the valley. But, I was running out of daylight, I continued on to Morgantown and finally got settled in.
So...I've always tried to get my friends to ride to West Virginia; in many ways, WV is a dual sport dream come true. The DoT is so underfunded that many roads go unpaved and untouched, and it's relatively "undiscovered", so all but the most famous points of interest are usually empty. And the mountains are far different than Colorado or Mexico - they're tighter, rolling claustrophobic mazes. The forests are older and darker. There are zero - and I mean, absolutely zero - straight roads. For reference, here's Telluride...
The Eastern Sierra Madres... (below Monterrey)
aaaand West Virginia. At the same scale.
Colorado...
West Virginia...
Hopefully, you get the idea. It makes for an odd difference to anything I've ridden before - West Virginia truly feels uncharted. It feels like I can ride in any direction and immediately be lost in the mountains.
So, for my 2021 summer...that's what I did.
I took the evenings and weekends to take off in a random direction. There's no world famous passes here, no ten story waterfalls, no backcountry discovery routes. This is a general area of my exploration. I didn't spend any nights camping or in hotels - all these locations are within a day's, or usually even an evening's ride, from Morgantown. Here's what I found
First up, these falls are something I call "Great White Falls". It's not on any maps, I happened to find this place exploring Decker's creek as a kid. Name comes from a certain view of the upper falls....
Going a bit north brings you to Cooper's Rock State Park. It's famous for it's balcony view of the surrounding hills, but also is a local favorite for its meandering paths and boulders in the hillside beneath. In the summertime, the rhododendron flowers bloom with a vibrance almost on par with the bluebonnets.
Heading south, I happened to spot the top of what I thought was a long-passed bridge support, just off the road. Slowing down I could hear waterfalls...
It was an old furnace of some sort (I think iron), overgrown just above some stained cascades...
Moving even farther south, saw a sign for "Olson Tower", headed down a dirt road. Of course I had to find out what that was...
[
Gotta say, swaying back and forth about seven stories up on an abandoned firewatch tower isn't my favorite feeling.
Guess who's back in action for my second trip writeup? That's right, momma Hileman's back, for Seneca Rocks
It's rare I see people dumber than I am...
Right nearby is a place called "Dolly Sods". This is a rare break from the rolling hills onto a high plateau, the only place here that has tastes of high altitude flora. The wind is so strong and consistent that the trees only grow one way...
And probably the last thing that I can actually locate on a map, is Blackwater Falls. These are some of the largest falls in WV, with a crowd (all right, maybe like 20 people) to match.
Unfortunately, you can't swim in these ones. But if you head about five minutes in some direction I don't remember, you can hit Douglas Falls and go wherever you please
Can you tell I like waterfalls?
Aaaaand here's the awkward part where I have a bunch of pictures from this trip, but I have no idea where they came from.
After all of this, it was time to return to Austin. My mom made sure to snap one dorky pic of me setting off
I stayed the night with a friend in Lexington, Kentucky. At a quick google, I saw that I had almost exactly 1000 miles left....
And of course, I had to try. After 16 hours, leaving and arriving in the dark, I made it back to Austin. Unofficial Iron Butt contender right here
I realize that this trip won't quite reach the notoriety of some of my other endeavors. I wasn't looking to conquer anything, physically, at least. This was the first time I had come back to my home state with a new sense of wonder and motivation, and it was my goal to dive into what I had apparently missed for the ~14 years I spent there. I also didn't have a gopro with me
So, sorry, no crash compilations, no corner shredding, no dust clouds.
I hope, if anything, I can at least persuade some people here (in Texas) to look northeast once in a while. For too long, I absolutely despised West Virginia. On top of my own personal history there, I always saw it as a relic, a shell, a derelict no-mans land. Now, after years wandering around the country, and after riding a motorcycle there, I've come to appreciate WV as the very definition of adventure.
If you're truly looking to get lost, get lost in the hills.
With covid opening up remote working opportunities in 2020, I decided that I should spend my 2021 summer somewhere a little less...sweaty. Without diving too much into my life story, I grew up in West Virginia, and my family still lives in Morgantown, the "Austin" of WV. After living in Texas for three years (at that point), I had really come to appreciate the mountainous, mysterious nature of WV. So, loaded up my Yamaha Tenere 700, and headed for Appalachia.
Made my way through Dallas, Little Rock and onto Nashville. Obviously I had to stop by Country Hall of Fame and Hattie B's Chicken. These two (arguably) define the sound of appalachian bluegrass
Stayed the night just outside of town and then it was time for Tail of the Dragon. It didn't disappoint, something like 317 turns in 11 miles? I definitely lost count.
(Yeah, sorry, I'm not paying for these pictures, but look at that form
)But god ****, it's exhausting...by 5 miles in, I was almost getting sick. Not to mention being fully loaded up on e07's, not exactly corner shredding tires. As always, having Texas plates on a Tenere 700 lead to some interesting friends, I ended up meeting a couple guys on an Africa Twin and KTM790 that they said they knew some more "adventurous" roads that ran through the mountains.
We found some good dirt roads, nothing too exciting until we saw a car up ahead stopped for a Black Bear crossing the road. We froze, prepared to clumsily turn around as fast as humanly possible. The car started honking, we started waving frantically and begging them to stop. The bear shrugged and continued off the side of the road.
Decided to stay in Johnson City, Tennessee, because of course. Eventually I made it through to southern West Virginia, and to the newest National Park! New River Gorge, with a bridge to match. Did I mention my fear of riding across bridges?
This NP is particularly special to me because of the couple times I've been white-water rafting here, which goes underneath at the bottom of the valley. But, I was running out of daylight, I continued on to Morgantown and finally got settled in.
So...I've always tried to get my friends to ride to West Virginia; in many ways, WV is a dual sport dream come true. The DoT is so underfunded that many roads go unpaved and untouched, and it's relatively "undiscovered", so all but the most famous points of interest are usually empty. And the mountains are far different than Colorado or Mexico - they're tighter, rolling claustrophobic mazes. The forests are older and darker. There are zero - and I mean, absolutely zero - straight roads. For reference, here's Telluride...
The Eastern Sierra Madres... (below Monterrey)
aaaand West Virginia. At the same scale.
Colorado...
West Virginia...
Hopefully, you get the idea. It makes for an odd difference to anything I've ridden before - West Virginia truly feels uncharted. It feels like I can ride in any direction and immediately be lost in the mountains.
So, for my 2021 summer...that's what I did.
I took the evenings and weekends to take off in a random direction. There's no world famous passes here, no ten story waterfalls, no backcountry discovery routes. This is a general area of my exploration. I didn't spend any nights camping or in hotels - all these locations are within a day's, or usually even an evening's ride, from Morgantown. Here's what I found
First up, these falls are something I call "Great White Falls". It's not on any maps, I happened to find this place exploring Decker's creek as a kid. Name comes from a certain view of the upper falls....
Going a bit north brings you to Cooper's Rock State Park. It's famous for it's balcony view of the surrounding hills, but also is a local favorite for its meandering paths and boulders in the hillside beneath. In the summertime, the rhododendron flowers bloom with a vibrance almost on par with the bluebonnets.
Heading south, I happened to spot the top of what I thought was a long-passed bridge support, just off the road. Slowing down I could hear waterfalls...
It was an old furnace of some sort (I think iron), overgrown just above some stained cascades...
Moving even farther south, saw a sign for "Olson Tower", headed down a dirt road. Of course I had to find out what that was...
[
Gotta say, swaying back and forth about seven stories up on an abandoned firewatch tower isn't my favorite feeling.
Guess who's back in action for my second trip writeup? That's right, momma Hileman's back, for Seneca Rocks
It's rare I see people dumber than I am...
Right nearby is a place called "Dolly Sods". This is a rare break from the rolling hills onto a high plateau, the only place here that has tastes of high altitude flora. The wind is so strong and consistent that the trees only grow one way...
And probably the last thing that I can actually locate on a map, is Blackwater Falls. These are some of the largest falls in WV, with a crowd (all right, maybe like 20 people) to match.
Unfortunately, you can't swim in these ones. But if you head about five minutes in some direction I don't remember, you can hit Douglas Falls and go wherever you please
Can you tell I like waterfalls?
Aaaaand here's the awkward part where I have a bunch of pictures from this trip, but I have no idea where they came from.
After all of this, it was time to return to Austin. My mom made sure to snap one dorky pic of me setting off
I stayed the night with a friend in Lexington, Kentucky. At a quick google, I saw that I had almost exactly 1000 miles left....
And of course, I had to try. After 16 hours, leaving and arriving in the dark, I made it back to Austin. Unofficial Iron Butt contender right here
I realize that this trip won't quite reach the notoriety of some of my other endeavors. I wasn't looking to conquer anything, physically, at least. This was the first time I had come back to my home state with a new sense of wonder and motivation, and it was my goal to dive into what I had apparently missed for the ~14 years I spent there. I also didn't have a gopro with me
So, sorry, no crash compilations, no corner shredding, no dust clouds. I hope, if anything, I can at least persuade some people here (in Texas) to look northeast once in a while. For too long, I absolutely despised West Virginia. On top of my own personal history there, I always saw it as a relic, a shell, a derelict no-mans land. Now, after years wandering around the country, and after riding a motorcycle there, I've come to appreciate WV as the very definition of adventure.
If you're truly looking to get lost, get lost in the hills.
