Seneca Rocks

Last weekend, Sean and I went to Seneca Rocks in the Seneca Rocks/ Spruce Knob National Recreation Area. It is about a half hour from Elkins, but it actually lies on the other side of the Eastern Continental Divide. This means that the watershed is actually part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and the Discovery Center is part of the Chesapeake Bays Gateway Network. I first became familiar with that network working at Patuxent, which is also a member. It was fun to see such broad connections of tourism sites!

The Seneca Rocks are well-known for rock climbing, but there is also a mile and a half long trail that you can climb to get to the top of the rocks. Since Seneca Rocks is small and far away from any towns, I didn't expect there to be many people. But it turned out to be pretty crowded, probably because it was a holiday weekend. The view from the top was beautiful... but I forgot my camera so there are no pictures.

At the bottom of the trail, there is also a homestead set up to educate visitors about settlers of West Virginia. I was also impressed because there was so much going on! The homestead included an apple cider making demonstration, where they used apples from their garden and an apple press. The results were delicious. In the Discovery Center, we sat briefly and listened to music by a hammered-dulcimer player. He also had a variety of Native American instruments that he let the audience play.

We ended our trip with a late lunch picnic and headed home before a huge rain came. I learned that Elkins is on the 'rainy side' of the mountains and it can rain for days at a time. And maybe snow too...