West Virginia

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cbobcat49
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Last month we took a half week mini-vacation to West Virginia. 8 adults and 1 toddler rented a house in Minden. An old coal mining town.

Blackwater Falls
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The view from Spruce Knob - the highest point in West Virginia. In the Monongahela National Forest
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The New River Gorge
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The boulders at the bottom of the gorge in the river are as big as houses. I know this because.......
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..........that's right, we rafted the Class 5 rapids in the New River! :dance2: :pirate:
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The had a girl in a kayak paddle ahead of us, pull over on a rock, and take video and snap pictures of us going through the roughest rapids.

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Thurmond, WV is a ghost town down in the gorge. Thurmond once had more freight pass through than the next 2 stations on the C&O line combined! - Cincinnati and Richmond. This was due to all the coal that they would mine in the gorge and then ship out. The track still runs through town and the National Park Service maintains a visitor center in the old station.
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Some shots of the tipple at the old coal mining operation at Nuttalburg. A tipple was a long chute that brought coal from the mine up on the hillside down to railroad level, which was along the river, and then it was dropped directly into the waiting coal cars.
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More shots of everything here...
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What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us. ~Henry David Thoreau
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Matt
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great images--- especially the old coal mining stuff... and that class V rapid shot is sweet.
Did you hear any banjos?
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cbobcat49
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Did you hear any banjos?
That was the running joke of the week. :fear:
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us. ~Henry David Thoreau
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hobkyl
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Great photos Chris! I really like the Post Office and the elevated mining track. How did this river compare to the Genesee?
“There’s an inconsequentiality to our lives that living in the wilderness shows up. Mountain are real, they set their limits, they set ours. They expose us, make us vulnerable and strong at the same time. “
--Alison Wat




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cbobcat49
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How did this river compare to the Genesee?
No comparison! Boulders the size of houses. 10 foot high waves. Definitely a lot more water flow. The headwaters are all the way in North Carolina.

This was interesting: If anyone ever starts http://www.wvhistoric.com the marker that would be hardest to document would be the one I saw bolted to the downstream side of a boulder in the middle of a rapid. :shock: I just happened to look over my shoulder at the point and saw it. Our guide said it commemorates the first rafting company to open on the New in the 1960s. I don't know how anyone would get a chance to read it.
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us. ~Henry David Thoreau
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Matt
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I can see in the future another marker "On this spot a raft capsized while trying to read a nearby historic marker. 4 yankee tourists were lost."
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