Week 35 - Paintsville, Wayne NF

After stopping for lunch near Abingdon, I decided to start navigating using OsmAnd, which allows you to set a detailed vehicle profile including minimum, maximum, and preferred speeds, and often picks much more interesting routes than Google. I was not disappointed, and was soon winding through the mountains of western Virginia on tiny roads designated only with three digit numbers, and seeing only a few other cars, which was good because often the roads narrowed to a single lane. The scenery was stunning: steep rolling pastureland so picturesque it almost hurt to look at it, dotted all over with wildflowers. The road rose to sunny peaks and fell into shady bottoms burbling with cold clear streams, and passed through tiny villages all strung out in a line with the church on one end. Spring was in full swing here, with green leaves, buzzing insects, and the smell of flowers on the warm breeze.

But all things must come to an end, and after a few hours my senses were full and I returned to Route 23 to bang out the miles. I entered coal country and crossed the border into Eastern Kentucky, crossing the Big Sandy River at Elkhorn City and weaving under massive sheer faces of blasted rock. When I began to get tired I stopped in Paintsville and got a motel for the night. There was enough time left in the day to do my laundry, eat a small meal at a Chinese Buffet, and catch up on the phone with a close friend who just survived an emergency surgery. In the morning I continued up 23, got lunch and groceries for the week in Ashland, and crossed the Ohio River into Ohio. My destination was the southernmost section of Wayne National Forest, which has an extensive system of Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) trails, and I was excited to take Punkin offroad again. To do this, I needed a $35 season pass to use the trails, which I was able to buy a few miles from the trailhead at a beer store named Hop's (the Forest Service must know their market). The clerk said they'd been selling like hotcakes and she'd gone through a whole book of them that day alone. With my new pink sticker on the back of my helmet, I headed into the forest to scout a good place to camp.

Now, my romantic notion was to ride out on one of the trails and camp somewhere that could only be reached by an OHV, and I'd looked at satellite images to find likely spots on the north sides of the many small lakes that dot the forest, so I'd that have good solar exposure to the south. The first trail I went down was marked on the map with a black diamond that indicated "most difficult". At first it didn't seem so hard, the six foot wide gravel trail was in excellent condition, but then it suddenly plunged down at a ludicrous angle, and while descending the hill I failed to account for my full width, caught my right saddlebag on a tree, and dropped. Again I appreciated having such a light bike, because there was zero damage to Punkin or me (apart from a small leakage of gasoline and pride), but getting back upright while on a slope turned out to be quite a workout. And then I found out that even in first gear, the hill was too steep for Punkin to climb out of. Of course it was really because of all the luggage, which included heavy stuff like a new full bottle of fuel alcohol and the week's groceries. I took the luggage off, rode Punkin out, then returned twice to carry everything back to the road, which thankfully wasn't that far. That had been my only potential campsite on the trail system, and I later learned that there are very few clear, level areas bordering the trails, which are almost entirely flanked by dense undergrowth. So I looked at the spots accessible from the wide gravel Forest Service roads and found a fairly nice one on the north side of the whimsically-named Lake 21.

This section of the forest was strip mined for coal back in the 60's and 70's, but thanks to a law passed in the 50's, it had to be restored to some extent once the coal was gone. So it was shaped it into a geologically improbable but quite interesting landscape of plunging hillsides and small steep-sided lakes, and has since grown up with a canopy of mostly deciduous trees and dense understory of bushes with the occasional white-blossomed dogwood. What a pleasant contrast it was to The Scales with its blast of sun and wind! The land felt soft and green, and the air was mild and sweet with the smell of acres and acres of bush honeysuckle, more than I'd ever seen in my life, and the occasional silverberry. I made camp at the edge of a pull-off from the gravel road, under some sycamores and next to a path that plunged down steeply to a little beach on the shore of the lake. I set up my tent and wood stove (since there was cold wet weather in the forecast), gathered a load of dry firewood, and filtered water from the lake while talking to a fisherman who was out catching bass and bluegills with his daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, all four of them on kayaks. I could look down and easily see fish swimming ten feet away, suspended in the clear water.

And, well, it's been a quite week by Lake 21, Ohio, my home base, out there on the edge of coal country. There was some rain, but either it was mixed with sun or at night so it didn't feel like a bother. I saw numerous wildlife: skittish deer, some geese flying overhead and some with little goslings, a turtle on the trail speckled with orange, packs of coyotes yipping in the night, and a juvenile beaver swimming right by me in the dusk, starting its first summer on its own. Most of the people I saw were there to fish, but a surprising number of them drove to the end of the road and immediately turned around for some reason I could never figure out. Maybe they were exploring. There were also a fair number of yahoos on ATVs with loud pipes and radios blaring, but they always moved by quickly. There weren't many two-wheeled vehicles to be seen, although once I saw a couple guys hitting the trails on old Cushman scooters and thought to myself, "my people!" One evening I met a twinkly man named V, in his early 80's and from up near Utica, who stopped to talk for a while and then asked if he could park his camper van nearby for the night so his wife wouldn't worry. He told me some of the history of the local landscape. On a warm and sunny day I went swimming, and on a cold rainy day I toasted myself by the wood stove. One afternoon I went on a trail ride to recover my confidence and Punkin's honor, and without all the weight it was quite easy and fun. It was excellent riding practice though; many of the hills were so steep that only first gear would do.

Things I Learned

• The part of Route 23 I rode on is known as the "Country Music Highway" because it passes through the hometowns of so many stars like Loretta Lynn, Patty Loveless, Dwight Yoakam, and Billy Ray Cyrus.
• Bluegill have a nesting season, when the males scoop out little bowls on the bottom about the size of a steering wheel, defend them from other males, and try to entice the females to lay their eggs there. Apparently they're especially easy to catch during this time since they'll chase after anything that moves. An older fisherman told me he was able to see whether they were nesting by looking down at the lake through binoculars. They weren't nesting yet in my lake, so he drove off to look at another one which he said was generally a week or two ahead.
• The actual Mason Dixon line only went as far west as West Virginia, but southern Ohio still appears to be south of it both geographically and culturally.

Wonderful Things

• A warm fire when it's cold and damp. When the weather's nice I wonder why I'm carrying a wood stove, but whenever I light it, I'm like, "ohhh yeah, that's why". Having my body be the only source of heat for days on end can be kind of wearing, but basking like a lizard is so restorative that it makes me feel like I could camp forever.
• Repairing gear so it's good as new. In retrospect I probably should have removed my saddlebags while offroading, because I caught one of them on the bolt of a barrier and ripped an eight inch gash in it. Luckily I had packed a sewing kit, tarp tape, and seam sealer, and it was fun to get crafty and mend the damage, turning it into just a cool scar.
• Lying on my back watching geese fly overhead through the slanting evening sunlight, honking while their wingtips beat a hissing rhythm.