After a long day whitewater rafting on the New River, we were about ready to hit the sack and call it a day. We wanted to make a little progress first though, so we set the GPS for Washington DC and hit the road, planning to stop and make camp in an hour or so.

Apparently, our Garmin GPS had other ideas. It had passed the day idly sitting in the car, and was eager for a bit of adventure. At least that’s the only reason I can figure why it led us into the beautiful but not exactly on the way Monongahela National Forest, instead of to a nearby interstate.

Before quite realizing how we’d gotten there, we found ourselves in the middle of an absolutely pristine wilderness and winding back and forth on a narrow mountain road very reminiscent of the Blue Ridge Parkway, but minus the conveniently placed rest stops and overlooks.

Though the winding route was gorgeous, after a full day rafting I lacked the stamina to appreciate it, much less navigate it. The road lacked even a shoulder to pull onto, never mind a place to camp.

Looking down at the GPS, I saw nothing but green for at least 80 miles. “80 miles is only an hour and half,” I told myself. Then I looked at the speedometer and realized that I was averaging only 25mph in these very twisty twisties. I looked at my watch – 20 minutes to sunset. Then I said “shit”. Mountain roads are not a good place to drive after dark.

“At least it’s not raining,” I told myself.

When the sun came down the fog rolled in. 20 minutes after that a heavy rain began to fall. I slowed down to 15mph, and still felt like I was on the brink of death with every curve. With no shoulder, stopping wasn’t an option.

White knuckles gripping the steering wheel I debated whether or not to wake Dayna, who was sleeping fitfully in the passenger seat. Just after I decided to wake her on the premise that she should be conscious for what could be the last minutes of her life, she woke on her own accord.

She looked at the road. She looked at me. She tightened her seatbelt, and gripped the ‘oh shit’ handle above the door. She spoke. “Can I help?”

“Pray for a campground, or even a place to park,” I said.

We rode on in silence. Lights appeared behind us, tailgated us, and then passed us. I figured that they were either suicidal or superhuman.

At one point an 18-wheeler passed us going in the opposite direction, and the force of its passage rocked the van back and forth and covered the windshield in a deluge that made it impossible to see anything for several seconds. They were very long seconds.

In spite of the danger or perhaps because of it, the scene was hypnotic and primordial. We rolled into fogbanks and out the other side. The rain fell in torrents and then slackened. For many minutes we could see nothing beyond the soft halo of our headlights, but occasionally the rain would slacken with the fog and we’d find ourselves suspended in the forest in a bubble of absolutely breathtaking clarity. Then the rain or the fog would start again.

When I saw the dark green of a forest service sign and a gravel road just past it approaching fast in the murk, I managed to pull off just in time. The sign said “Virgin Spruce Overlook – 5 miles”.

The gravel road was a narrow one-lane affair, and the brush and trees crowded thick on either side. When I was doing trailwork with the forest service the accuracy of NFS signposts was widely bemoaned. A sign that said 5 miles could be more accurately interpreted to mean ‘between 3 and 10 miles’. As it was then, so it was now. We drove, and we drove, and we drove some more, deeper and deeper into the forest. Never have I felt such a sense of remoteness in a motor vehicle – it was almost like backpacking.

Finally we arrived at the end of the road. It terminated in a cul-de-sac, a trashcan and the trailhead it’s only features. Just as we arrived the rain slackened to a drizzle, and then stopped. I got out to make camp and beheld the deep dark of the deep woods. When I looked up into the sky I found only gray due to the cloud cover, but when I looked around me in the clearing I saw stars everywhere – fireflies.

After I lifted pop-top of the camper into place, I unzipped all the windows to open our home to the lightshow outside. Dayna and I stood hand in hand and watched the symphony – the lights of the lighting bugs calling to one another in patterns that rippled and bounced across the clearing. Gradually I became aware of the sounds of crickets, and realized that their calls were manifested in a similar ‘call and response’ pattern. The lighting bugs and crickets were having a party, and we felt like the luckiest party crashers in the world.

That night, I had one of the most restful night’s sleep in my life. The next morning greeted us cool and crisp, and Dayna and I both woke up feeling refreshed. We had a leisurely breakfast, and then ventured onto the trail.

Everywhere we were surrounded by Spruce tree young and old, and the needles crunched under our feet. “Baby Christmas Trees,” Dayna said as she clapped, and I realized that she was right.

The trail was short, but absolutely beautiful. Sometimes it’s better to be left wanting more, and we were. As we returned to the van, another car pulled up. We’d had the sacred place all to ourselves for 12 hours – it was their turn now.

Rambo’s got nothing on Heather

Her name was Heather, and I knew from the minute I saw her that she was a bigger man than I was. She was our whitewater tour guide on the New River, which is paradoxically one of the oldest rivers in the world.

Dayna and I knew after our first whitewater trip on the Ocoee that we wanted more, and the New River in West Virginia was our answer.

Any notion that we knew what we were doing as whitewater veterans was quickly but kindly dispelled by Heather, who called us and our raft mates ‘flying squirrels’ for reasons that would later become evident. I preferred that nickname to what she called her husband (John Rat) or her dog (Squeaky Rat). Apparently, she had a predilection for rodents.

Jenna Elfmans in distress - Call US Weekly!

The raft we rode in on this trip was considerably larger than the one we’d rode in in Tennessee, and we had a much larger crew. There were perhaps 8 guests total, plus Heather. Two of our raft mates were from Jackson, MS, and were in West Virginia for a massive family reunion. A family of 3 was from Alexandria Virginia. The father worked for the National Safety Transportation Board. The daughter had just graduated from college with an acting major, and looked remarkably like Jenna Elfman.

Being so old, the New River has had plenty of time to carve a gorge out of the surrounding alluvial plain. The New River Gorge is called ‘The Grand Canyon of the East’ – and although there seem to be many places that call themselves that, the epithet in this particular case was fitting.

We’d signed up for the full day trip, so I had plenty of time to enjoy the scenery. Though the action on this river was a bit spread out and left time for sightseeing and swimming, the rapids between the calm stretches were incredibly intense and satisfying.

Thanks to an eddy and some curious river dynamics we ran one particular number several times. We’d run it, the person in the front on the right would be sucked out the boat, and then we’d swing around to pick them up, change positions in the boat, and do it again. Everyone going into the front right corner thought they’d be able to stay in the boat, and almost no one did.

Tennesse State Quarter (minus the foot)

This had happened 3 times before my turn, and yet I was still surprised when I got sucked in the water and under the boat. On that run I wasn’t the only one – 3 others went with me.

Dayna proved so good at pulling people back into the boat (she’d use her whole body for leverage in a rather pretty feat of gymnastics) that Heather pronounced her the best rescue operator she’d ever seen.

Her skills very nearly saved her from being thrown overboard, but despite an incredibly limber back bend in midair gravity and water pressure prevailed and Dayna also made a trip under the boat. When she popped out of the water laughing I knew all was well.

After a full day of similar thrills we pulled out of the river just past the country’s largest single span suspension bridge (featured on the Tennessee state quarter) pretty well exhausted.