The Road Less Traveled

I must tell you this.

Sunday, my brother whom I haven’t seen since last summer drove from Lincoln County to spend time with me. And how do two long-time apart brothers spend time? Watch a football game? Go to a summer blockbuster movie? No. None of those will do. Not my brother and me. We plopped two department store inner tubes into the Coal River at about 3:00 p.m., starting at Upper Falls in Tornado, and rode without paddles for almost six hours until we finally crawled onto shore at Lower Falls in St. Albans.

I’m going to try to post a map of the area we traveled. It really isn’t that far, a few miles. In fact, you can drive from Upper Falls to Lower Falls in about fifteen minutes. But since we were floating in a mostly still river without paddles, only our arm strength to push us along, it took a little less than six hours.

I knew it would be great. The Coal River is an underrated river because it is dirty and I know there was a serious problem for a while with a lot of harmful bacteria due to pollution. However, a group known as The Coal River Group has been working hard for years to clean up the river and has finally succeeded in turning the river into a water trail, calling it the Walhonde Trail. The entire trail is 88 miles, stretching across the Big Coal River, Little Coal River, and the Coal River, through three different counties. It’s probably impossible to travel the entire trail in one day, so the Coal River Group and the DNR have broken the trail into recommended “trips.” I happen to know that we took Trip C-2.

During our trip, they sky stayed a clear blue with a few clouds that made laying back on the inner tube so amazing. Since a lot of the river is shaded by trees, I didn’t get much of a sunburn. And if you’ve never been on a river as the sun goes down, I highly recommend it. This trip also gave plenty of time for my brother and I to talk, about his new relationship, about his future plans, and (of course) about our father.

Cheese Warning: While my arms regretted the trip, my heart, mind and soul did not. Seriously, it was nice to just float on the river, relax, and basically give myself up to nature. The only tension I remember was when I decided to roll over on the inner tube and had to keep from tipping over in deep water.

I can honestly say now that putting an inner tube on a river without paddles to travel about five miles is a wonderfully foolish decision. If you’re a nature lover, it is one of the best things you can do for yourself, to let the river take you and to enjoy the wildlife. We saw deer, herons, ducks, all kinds of fish.

Below are two maps. Let’s hope they work. The first is the official map for the Walhonde Trail. As I said, my brother and I took Trip C-2, so you can find it near the top of the map. This map is upside down for the flow of the rivers. The Big Coal and the Little Coal flow into the Coal, and the Coal flows into the Kanawha River at the top of the map.

The other map is the official Google Maps view of the area. You can zoom in (I think) and take a closer look at the river. We started just above Upper Falls Road. There are some interesting little islands close to Lower Falls that I think have some history with the logging industry.

View Larger Map

Until later — “There’s no turning back now that you opened up to your mind.”

Those who have been friends with me for a while know that I have a passion for wolves.  My house is decorated with framed posters and paintings of gray wolves, ceramic figurines of wolves, resting in the snow or stretching their necks in a silent howl.

It used to be an obsession.  I even had wolf slippers that howl when you pinch their ears.  Now, it is just a deep love.  When I was a young teenager, I had a dream where I was hiking at night and got lost.  After stumbling through thicket, I had given up hope.  The trail I was on opened to a circular clearing and standing in the center was a wolf with snow white fur.  “Lost your way?”  His voice sounded like mine.  “Come on, it’s out this way.”  He led me away from the clearing and back into the woods.  After that, the dream was disrupted by my alarm clock.  This changed my love of wolves from a simple liking to a great respect and appreciation.

Native Americans studied and revered the wolf as a guide for behaviors like honoring family, hunting with grace and pride, and surviving in difficult conditions.  After my dream, this is how I also looked at the wolf, as a guide, a symbol of sorts.  My totem.

I’ve got to lighten my mood.  This cat thing has me really frazzled.  So, here is the pic of the Snow Leopard I promised, since we’re on the topic of cats.

Isn’t he gorgeous?  There are so many beautiful animals at the Cleveland Zoo.  My dream is to work at the zoo in education.  This would give me a chance to get to know every animal in the zoo and to teach others about them.

Can you come up with a cool name for this guy?  I’ll leave that up to you.

Hello again.  I have a little bit of time before I have to be back in class for the Summer Institute, so just for fun I thought I would post a wikipedia article about alligator snapping turtles.  Here’s the gist of it… “The alligator snapping turtle is the largest freshwater turtle in North America…  It is a larger and slightly less agressive relative of the Common Snapping Turtle…”  Oh, that’s good news.  Why?  Let’s continue… “There is an unverified report of a 403-pound alligator snapping turtle found in the Neosho River in Kansas in 1937, but the largest one actually recorded is 236 pounds, and housed at Brookefield Zoo in Chicago, Illinois.  They generally do not grow that large…”  Hmm, glad to know that.  “Average adult size is around 26 inches in shell length with a weight of 175 pounds.”

But here’s my favorite part, the part that makes me want to go catch one right now, just to say I did:  “The alligator snapping turtle possesses extraordinary bite strength, and can be quite aggressive when cornered.  These turtles must be handled with extreme care.”

Okay, enough science lessons.  Until later…

– “There’s no turning back now that you’ve opened up to your mind.”

After my past post, I did a little bit of research on snapping turtles.  I said the one in my yard was huge, and he was pretty big compared to the usual size of others around here.  But look at this:

 It’s an alligator snapping turtle caught in Georgia.  If I lived it Georgia, I would really have to check how much I love my daughter to catch that guy.  Eh… I’d still get him, if it meant a cool experience for her.