Wanting to get out of town for a few days, I talked my friend into taking time off for a little bit of wilderness downtime. The destination was the highest and most remote point in West Virginia – but more about the location later.
Getting out of civilization takes a lot more planning than a normal hotel-based trip. And of course, most of the planning revolves around the food. I decided that for once I wanted to cook something more complicated than my usual ‘Timmy Tacos’. Timmy Tacos (for those of you that don’t know) consists of making sure that everyone is drunk enough that they can’t tell my Tacos are barely better than Taco Bell’s.
So I put together an experimental menu of some Italian and Asian dishes and spent a day hitting all of the ethnic supermarkets that I’d always driven by but never been into. I laid my hands of a second-hand wok and borrowed a rice cooker. But just in case things went tragically south in the kitchen I also brought enough canned soup to ensure we wouldn’t starve.
But my cooking aside the obvious highlight of the trip was going to be the stargazing. Being at one of the highest and most remote points in West Virginia the views are legendary. There’s even an annual astronomy festival that rents the place out for a week each August. So I started tracking the weather 10 days out. It soon became obvious – clear skies – nope – snow – yup.
But three days out the forecasts got a little confused. Some were calling for 1-2 inches – others 5-8. I also had to keep in mind that while the nearest forecast location was just four miles from the destination we were going to be 2,000 feet higher – and that could be a totally different forecast.
So we decided to set out a couple of hours earlier than planned to beat whatever snow fell. We drove straight through except for a bathroom break and some bad road-food choices (yum – coconut doughnuts from Dunkins – yum). We finally found a station on Sirius/XM that we liked (something called 2nd wave punk) and four hours later we arrived. By now the outside of the truck was covered in snow, and the inside covered in coconut sprinkles.
The destination is located on a 400+ acre nature preserve run by a non-profit. Basically, they teach kids about nature and ecology along with some practical classes on wilderness survival. At the center of the campus is “The Yurt”. Because they don’t do classes during the Winter they rent the entire place (all 400 acres plus the buildings) out on AirBnB.
“The Yurt” (all about Yurts) is a total of four stories tall. I won’t even guess it’s diameter – but it’s huge. The ground floor is a giant kitchen with a 12-burner lumber camp stove and every kind of cooking tool and bulk staple & seasoning you could want. The second floor is the study tables where kids work on their assignments. The next level is the library with about a thousand books on all kinds of topics from ecology to astronomy to physics and even some light history. Even better, it’s got lots of comfy chairs and couches you can melt into as you read and a giant wood stove to keep toasty.
At the very top is the sleeping area. It’s about 15 feet in diameter with a huge glass bubble for a roof. It’s even cooler than it sounds.
The entire place was built starting in 1976 (there’s a photo of them putting the frame together pinned above the kitchen doorway). I say ‘starting’ because it’s clear that it’s always been a work in progress. There are little handmade additions and alterations that have obviously been done over the decades by various hands and varying skill levels. A lot of places work hard to fake this kind of ambiance – this place actually has it.
All in all – it’s like having that place you used to go to summer camp all to yourselves – and not having to sneak the booze in.
After unloading the truck, the first order of business was food. Dinner was going to be a tad ambitious. Chicken Marsala, asparagus with white sauce & Italian salad. But after a small fire consumed most of the ingredients we wound up serving fried potatoes & Italian salad.
We did dinner the second night as a team production of Beef and Broccoli – and it was actually pretty good. The verdict was that we needed smaller beef pieces and more sauce, but that the low sodium soy had been a solid choice. The highlight was the rice. I can see why Asians use the shorter and stickier grained rice. It’s easier to get on the chopsticks and really absorbs the sauce rather than letting it run to the bottom of the bowl.
But the real topic was the snow. It kept falling and falling. The real time weather report said it had stopped 12 hours ago but it was still coming down. At one point the Yurt’s phone went off and we answered in case it was an emergency. It was actually the National Weather Service asking for an observation. I told them it was probably 5-8 inches – but my guess is that we probably got 12+ inches. And it was cold – single digits for the last 30 hours. While the wood stove does give that authentic pioneer feeling to things, it’s kind of a pain to keep feeding it every 3-4 hours. But it did keep it nice and warm, even overnight.
But the upside of all that snow and cold was total and absolute silence. I don’t just mean the lack of civilization – I mean the lack of anything. The animals had all gone into hiding and the snow seemed to absorb any vibration. It was eerie and cool at the same time. The only noise you would hear was the occasional crack as a branch gave way under the weight of the snow and ice. And even those sounds didn’t echo. I went out a couple of time and just listened to the absence of sound.
Aside from watching the snow, the three days were completely devoted to doing nothing except reading, sleeping and lounging (although there might have been a lot of napping and eating involved as well). My friend journaled and polished off a couple of books. Meanwhile I played pyromaniac with the wood stove, raided the Yurt’s secret stash of Fig Newtons and worked on my relaxing skills with mixed success. And while we had secure Wi-Fi to check the state of the world we basically stayed off society’s radar as much as possible.
The only real excitement was the last night as we trudged through the snow to the flushable toilets and spotted these. We quickly did the “Did you make these – no – Did you make them – no”. I tried to identify the animal based on the tracks and decided on a really big guy wearing size 14 boots with a limp. Humm….we’re supposed to be the only ones up here.
So
- The only people staying in a remote school camp
- Large unexplained footprints in the snow
- Trapped in a blizzard
- Sleeping in a Yurt that has no locks on its doors
- A ground floor kitchen filled with butcher knives
I won’t say I slept with one eye open – but…
Managing to wake up still alive the next day we packed up for departure. But if the snow at the Yurt was cool the trip out was even better. We put the 4 Runner into 4WD and moved out at about 15 miles an hour. Just enough to move, not enough to slip. It took nearly 45 minutes to get off the mountain, but the snow and ice were putting on quite the show for us the whole way. At one point the trees were bent over the road and covered in sheets of ice. The whole thing shimmered like a crystal tunnel or something out of a Tolkien novel. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the local Elves waving at us as we drove past. Even the air itself seemed to sparkle. The result, I think, of moisture freezing in the air and glinting before it melted again. It was cool. Too bad the cameras couldn’t really capture it. Come to think of it, too bad we had to leave at all.