Well, I haven't been to the Sods since last summer. It was time for a trip.
Saturday afternoon 2 friends of mine and I headed up to the Sods. We hung out Saturday evening and hiked most of the day on Sunday. Although I would have rather done an overnight trip in the backcountry, I still haven't accumulated all of the gear needed to do a backcountry trip. This meant that we had to car camp. This is a huge bummer because we were forced to eat steak for dinner and have a nice big breakfast that consisted of bacon, eggs, and fried potatoes. Dang
We ended up sleeping in Sunday morning and made it to the trailhead by 11:30. We first started on Blarkbird Knob Trail. The eastern trailhead is right off of Forest Road 75. We followed this trail about 3 miles out until it met up with Harman Knob Trail. This trail was extremely scenic as we walked up through plenty of flowering heath. Even saw a very small green snake (not sure what kind it was....cellular biology is more of my gig). We then picked up Rocky Ridge Trail, which we backtracked about 200 yards on to a meadow with a wide open view of Canaan Valley. On the ridge we found a trail that followed the top of Cabin Mountain on the Canaan side, just right above the houses you can see from Timberline. After making it to the far south of this trail we got some really nice views of a green Timberline. We then got back on Rocky Ridge Trail and took it all of the way to Raven Ridge trail. This trail was pretty cool because it was different in all places. Lots of thick spruce forests, open meadows, hardwood forests, and wide open heath meadows. At the end of this trail we met up with Dobbin Grade Trail and used it to get to Upper Red Creek Trail. This trail was a neat connector back to Blackbird Knob Tail. After we got back to the trail it was only a 2 mile hike back to the car.
All together it took us about 7 hours to travel around 15 miles. Our legs and feet were sure feeling it when we got back. I couldn't imagine if we would have had tons of elevation change.
This was a great trip and I would highly recommend it. I would also recommend that you do it as an overnight hike. 15 miles is a lot of hike in one day. After about the 10-12 mark it starts to feel more like work.
The plan is Muttley's this Thursday night (assuming the still have the $1.10/ounce steak) and a 12-15 mile Roaring Plains shuttle hike on Friday. Anyone up for it? Get a hold of me. Make sure you have comfy boots!!!
I'll post some pictures here in a bit
Here is the album:
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/573291711vgBJFi?start=0 Here are some of the highlights:
Sunset at Bear Rocks
Mmmmm, beef
The finished product
Blackbird Knob Trail
Harman Knob Trail
Relaxing and enjoying the view of Timberline and Canaan Valley
Rocky Ridge Trail
Crunchy has been here!!
Raven Ridge Trail
Working Hard
