We know we're not the only WV out there. The fine state of West Virginia is celebrating their sesquicentennial this week. It's a state that has an abundance of wild lands and that's worth celebrating!
This fall we'll be running our third consecutive service project in West Virginia wilderness. Our trip to the Dolly Sods wilderness is all full this year (you can always join the waitlist), so be sure to sign up early when next year's schedule is released.
A photo from WV's 2012 project in Dolly Sods Wilderness
In the meantime, our friends at The Nature Conservancy have released this travel guide to help you discover some of the great natural areas you can explore in the Wild and Wonderful state. Enjoy!
Our inaugural trip last year into West Virginia's Cranberry Wilderness - 1 of 8 projects in the east in 2011 - led us into the middle of 90,000 acres of beautiful hardwood forest, which up until 2007 was a black bear sanctuary boasting nearly 1 bear per square mile. (By comparison, Shenandoah National Park, home to one of the greatest concentrations of black bears in the country, is estimated to hold upwards of 1.5 bears per square mile). As with any trip in bear country, securing our food from bears - as well as raccoons, chipmunks, and possibly bigfoot - was a top priority.
Heavy duty bear boxes are generally the preferred method of choice, particularly when you have a group of hearty and able mules and horses to carry them and your food into camp. With no trails in the Cranberry graded for pack animals, we turned to the tireless Forest Service and their strong and able backs for assistance. Short on bear boxes, we improvised.
Enter the PCT method, which requires only 50-60' of rope, a carabiner, 1-2 stuff sacks, and a sturdy 6" long stick. (And a tree of course). Unlike the usual method of simply throwing a rope over a limb and tying one end to a nearby tree (and hoping that a bear doesn't pull the taut line - and the food bag - down to the ground), the PCT technique allows the rope to hang freely, tension-free from the limb, eliminating the risk that a critter will wreak havoc in your backcountry kitchen and spoil your next meal.
Here's a great step-by-step tutorial on how to use the PCT method, which came in quite handy during our stay in the Cranberry. It will take some practice to get the hang of the clove hitch, but once you do you'll appreciate the simplicity and utility of this approach. We certainly did and we'll be using it again when we head to the Monongahela's Dolly Sods Wilderness this October.
Have suggestions on how to improve upon the PCT method? Or suggested alternatives? We're all ears!
I recently came across these words in a book I've been reading:
"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." - Mahatma Gandhi
Well put. Each time I step into the woods for a week with Wilderness Volunteers, I find myself slowing down, reconnecting, and rediscovering. It's a priceless experience, and it's just one of many reasons to lace up your boots, strap on a pack, and head off on an adventure service project with Wilderness Volunteers. With week-long volunteer service trips in national parks, forests, and wilderness areas from Hawaii to Alaska, Maine to New Mexico and most everywhere in between, there's a trip for everyone and plenty of earth and soil in need of digging and tending!
I'll be swinging a pulaski and tending the trail in West Virginia's Dolly Sods Wilderness in early October - just in time to catch the onset of the incredible autumn colors in some beautiful country. It's reinvigorating just thinking about it and sure to be memorable.
But you don't have to take my word for it - take Gandhi's. And rediscover the great outdoors and yourself this year. Join WV in "Giving Something Back" on any one of the 50+ volunteer service trips available in 2012. Check out the complete project list and sign up here.
P.S. For more on the rejuvenating powers of WV, read self-proclaimed "WV Junkie" Nancy Cappelloni's account in the Winter 2011 newsletter.
In less than two weeks, Wilderness Volunteers heads to "Wild and Wonderful" West Virginia for our first ever service trip in "The Mountain State." That's right: WV in WV!
We'll spend the week ditchin' and turnpikin' - that's trail slang for cleaning up soggy, washed out trail - in the Cranberry Wilderness, which some have called "the crown jewel" of the 919,000-acre Monongahela National Forest. Home to scenic red spruce, rhododendron groves, and mossy, fern-covered forest floors, the wilderness is a designated black-bear sanctuary and boasts some of the best trout fishing in the east.
We've got a good project, a good hike, good meals, and a good group - all key ingredients for a successful trip. One could say "It's Almost Heaven..."
Our Mission is stewardship of America's wild lands through organizing and promoting volunteer service in cooperation with public land agencies including the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Wilderness Volunteers is proud to be supported by a Matching Grant from the National Forest Foundation. Founded by Congress in 1991, The National Forest Foundation works to conserve, restore and enhance America's 193-million-acre National Forest System. Through community-based strategies and public partnerships, the NFF helps enhance wildlife habitat, revitalizes wildfire-damaged landscapes, restores watersheds, and improves recreational resources for the benefit of all Americans.
