Camping at Big Bend National Recreation Area
2nd Week of June, 1997
Located in West Virginia on the
South Branch of the Potomac River, in the Monongahela National
Forest, the Big Bend Campground is remote, quiet, not too tame,
and quite beautiful. There is direct river access from some of
the campsites, and the trout fishing, while somewhat slow, was
very rewarding when we caught one! We caught about 1 trout per
day, but quickly learned how to c&r the rock bass at will
when we started getting bored. The scenery and the quiet were
perhaps the best attributes of this trip.
For complete information on the Big Bend Campground, click here.
This is the site we picked. It's on the upper loop, way
up on a tall hill, away from the river and the main crowd of
sites. The bathroom is just the other side of the dark bushes in
the middle left of the picture. We spent 7 glorious days here,
and didn't want to leave when it was over. Only real problems we
had were:
"Squirrel
Proofing". There were a lot of brown and gray
squirrels in these woods, and chipmunks, too! Lost half a
box of bread one day in a matter of hours because they
were able to chew right through the cardboard. We had to
devise a system of rocks and tarps to protect the food,
which required an extra 15 minutes to set up every time
we wanted to leave the site to go fishing! This was cool,
because it was also rain protection.
"Daddy
Longlegs!" The sheer number and size of these
spiders was absolutely unbelievable. At nightfall, they
swarmed on the grass, all over the tent, and we would
find them everywhere in the morning, in pots and pans,
cups, everywhere. A very strict protocol of
tent-flap-zipping was religiously adhered to after we
learned the hard way the first night. Here is an example
of the lengths to which we went (stuffed a plastic bag
into a small hole in the side of the tent):
Here's my brother, Naldo, kickin'
it at the camp site. We had fished all morning, and it was nap
time now! Check out the gas grill in the background! Talk about
ruffin' it...
This is a shot of a sign describing
Smoke Hole Cave, and a shot of Smoke Hole Canyon at daybreak. The
mist in the picture is representative of that described on the
sign, and it rises from the river in the cold morning mountain
air.
This location was awesome,
for its beauty and its fish. Naldo is shown holding up a rainbow
trout he caught on a KastMaster silver-blue light spoon!
This was our view of the high
cliffs from the campsite every morning. This is about 6:00am -
the sun is coming, but we're still cold!
Here is part of the "Big
Bend". The river is flowing "into" this picture,
having made a slow 180 degree turn.
This is a rock formation
called "Eagle Rock", named by a military officer in the
1800's.
Here's Naldo, kneeling by the other
side of the Big Bend, again, river flowing into the picture. Its
about 4 feet deep on the outside curve.
Well, time to get it wrapped up!
Brought way too much stuff, but, hey, we'll make it fit!
And so it all ended...
