Today, Cool Guy and I traveled two hours to Audra State Park, near Buckhannon WV. Burt warned me ahead of time that there might be snow, due to the Frankenstorm resulting from Hurricane Sandy colliding with a huge winter front. We saw on Weather Channel that this had greatly affected the Snowshoe area, but I figured that Audra was far enough away from Snowshoe that it would have minimal impact. My mistake was complacency due to my own area not being affected and lack of follow up by the media which focused instead on the aftermath of Sandy in the Northeast.
Lesson learned: check ahead of time if weather just might be an issue. Why am I always learning lessons the hard way?
The drive down there was easy with no mishaps, but it was like an invisible wall. As soon as we were about 10 miles away from Audra, suddenly there was snow. First a little on the mountains, then snow covering all the ground. But we're talking inches, not feet. I wasn't worried.
What I wasn't aware of was that there was WIND to go with that snow in the Frankenstorm. Having suffered greatly last July from a freak wind storm, losing power for 5 days of extreme heat, lines down, trees down everywhere, no water, no ice, I know what a major storm can do. When we got to Audra, it looked pretty bleak. Suffice it say, we were definitely the only ones there. Snow was everywhere. But trees were down everywhere, too. What I had expected to be an easy hike turned out to be impossible to do if I wanted to do it safely. Power lines lay across trees, which blocked trails.
Cool Guy and I wandered around a bit, looked at the damage, admired the incredibly beautiful Middle Fork River, and speculated what a future hike here will entail. We are definitely going back, but giving the Rangers at least a month to get things back to normal.
We will definitely call ahead.
Total distance: probably 1 mile. Difficulty: hard. Couldn't walk 5 feet without navigating over, under, or around a tree.
Lesson learned: check ahead of time if weather just might be an issue. Why am I always learning lessons the hard way?
The drive down there was easy with no mishaps, but it was like an invisible wall. As soon as we were about 10 miles away from Audra, suddenly there was snow. First a little on the mountains, then snow covering all the ground. But we're talking inches, not feet. I wasn't worried.
What I wasn't aware of was that there was WIND to go with that snow in the Frankenstorm. Having suffered greatly last July from a freak wind storm, losing power for 5 days of extreme heat, lines down, trees down everywhere, no water, no ice, I know what a major storm can do. When we got to Audra, it looked pretty bleak. Suffice it say, we were definitely the only ones there. Snow was everywhere. But trees were down everywhere, too. What I had expected to be an easy hike turned out to be impossible to do if I wanted to do it safely. Power lines lay across trees, which blocked trails.
Cool Guy and I wandered around a bit, looked at the damage, admired the incredibly beautiful Middle Fork River, and speculated what a future hike here will entail. We are definitely going back, but giving the Rangers at least a month to get things back to normal.
We will definitely call ahead.
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