Good Friday Afternoon!
It has been a spectacular fall - maybe the first nice thing 2020 has done for us. Because of that we’ve been out running the back roads and trails and rivers pretty hard. I know I joked about it in my last post, but I’m serious - why do folks come to WV - or any park for that matter - as though it’s the only place to see nature, or trees, or wildlife? There are approximately 1,500,000 acres of public land in West Virginia alone - why in the world would you want to be part of a traffic jam while out “enjoying nature”?
So, we’ve gone elsewhere. We’ve done empty mountain bike rides in Canaan Valley. We’ve done empty river trips on the Tygart. We’ve done empty hikes in the Cheat Canyon WMA. It’s pretty strange - it’s like COVID has pushed people outside, but they still don’t make it more than a mile from the hard top road.
While I’m glad they are staying out of our playgrounds (for now), the fact that Dolly Sods and Blackwater, and the New are getting literally loved to death worries and saddens me. I imagine - and honestly hope - that it is a matter of time before there is a permit and max attendance policy for those places, and that those policies favor residents of WV. I would love to see a withholding of camp sites for folks with WV licenses or a fee for out of state visitors. Otherwise, there isn’t much difference in my mind between the throng at Dolly Sods and mountaintop removal mining. Both are out of state interests taking advantage of a resource at the expense of people that live here.
Hope y’all have a good weekend.