Girls on the Trail in Cranberry Wilderness 9/24-26(Picture album is at the bottom)
So, it's Friday morning and the phone rings at about 5:50am. My alarm clock had been going off since 5:30am. Thank God for snooze buttons. It's Spindle saying she's heading out the door in about 10 minutes. Me, in my groggy state, said okay, I should be getting up and around. I'll be heading out at about 8am.
I just got back from business out in California the night before... late. I did manage to get a travel voucher out of the deal, so I'm okay with that. Plus, I got to meet Mtmnslady and Mr Mtmnslady for dinner in Santa Monica! 
So, the trip out west wasn't a complete bust. But, I had much to do the morning I had to leave for West-By-God-Virginny.
I got myself around and packed and made a quick trip to the grocery for snack foods. Then I was on the road. The drive to West Virginia is a nice one. About an hour southeast of Columbus you enter the foothills of the Appalachians. Once you hit West Virginia, you start seeing some big hills and the scenery is very nice.
So, spindle and I played phone tag through WV a little bit as there is absolutely no cell reception in them thar hills. Turns out I was about an hour and a half ahead of her. So, I took a detour and headed for the Monongahela Forest office. Turns out the office was about 45 minutes out of my way. But, I did get a nice map out of it. It's too bad they don't cater to backpackers because this thing is humongous and not at all water-proof. 
So, I get back on the road and about 40 minutes later I start down the little forest road that will take me eventually to the trailhead. My directions stated crossing a one-lane bridge and turning immediately right. Unfortunately, it wasn't mentioned there are actually two one-lane bridges. I felt like I was driving for forever on that road. While driving along, I past a car that I thought was maybe spindle. But it couldn't have been because she would be going the same way I was. I finally reach the road after the one-lane bridge and turn onto it. I look in my rearview mirror and sure enough, there's spindle!
So, we get out and she tells me about the two older southern gentlemen that were more than helpful to give her directions to the trailhead. They also informed her of the pit toilets at the campsite there! Such helpful people they were. 
As we get packed up and items stowed in our cars, it starts raining. The start of what would be quite the rainy weekend. We get a few feet in on the trail and the rain really starts coming down, so we got under the overhang of the sign and don our rain gear. Yikes!
We hit the trail again and as we're hiking along, it very difficult to see anything. My rain coat completely blocked my peripheral vision. We hiked in about 3 miles before we hit the first stream crossing where we would be staying the night. It was about 4:30pm. So, we wondered around a bit hoping for the rain to let up, checked out the waterfall and scoped out all the campsites in the area. We began gathering wood and around that time, the rain finally stopped. So, we pitched tents and got our campsite set up.
That night we sat next to the campfire, drank our trailgaritas and talked girl stuff. 
We retired to our pods around 11 that night. Sometime during the night, it resumed raining...
Next morning we were racing the rain to get our gear gathered without it getting completely soaked. It just didn't happen. We get geared up and head off at about 9:30am. First thing we'd be doing a 2000 foot climb up to the top of a ridge. We headed up the Big Beachy Trail in a heavy rain. About 100 foot up, I start noticing I'm getting dizzy, nauseous and seeing spots. A couple hundred more foot up, I mention to spindle my quandry. I was overheating and my blood pressure was going wacky. We made a decission to head back down to see if I started to feel better. The trail we were on, if I were to pass out, I'd head straight down if I fell the wrong way. Trees may break my fall, but it would hurt. 
Spindle also mentioned that if she had to drag my butt off the mountain, she'd take pictures all the way. 
We head down and as we're heading down, the rain finally starts to taper off. By the time we got to the bottom of the hill it was about 11:00 and the rain had stopped. So, we stripped the rain gear and took it easy for a little bit. I had swollen up like a balloon. About a half hour later, I was feeling better, so we grabbed our packs again and headed down the Middle Fork Trail; a flat trail that is right along the Williams River. What a pretty walk it is! We decided to take our time and explore some along here as we'd only be heading in another 3 or 4 miles.
Along our route, we found a dangerous blue attack lobster. The cutest little guy! Spindle decided to scoop him up in her camera case and put him in the river because that's where we thought he belonged. We'd find out differently later. There was also a really cool campsite with a nice waterfall across the river that I've tucked away in my mind. By this time the sun started to peak through as well. It teased us going behind clouds just as we reached a sunny spot.
We headed on down until we hit the next stream crossing where there was a nice little campsite. Once again, we gathered firewood; lots and lots of firewood. We layed out our tents and rain gear to start drying out. Spindle looked at her GPS which had been tracking us since we left our first campsite that morning. "We look like teenagers with ADD". We had wandered 7 miles today.
After wandering around the campsite and doing a little exploring, we sat back and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon. After a few hours, I was dried out, finally. We at dinner and got the campfire going. We were trying to listen for for the weather report because a "cold front" was to come through at some point. I don't know, it felt pretty darn chilly that day already. We had a nice selection of Mountaineer Football and Gospel Blue Grass music. It made for some interesting entertainment.
At about 9 o'clock, it started raining on us again. Tonight we'd head to bed with the rain so as not to get soaked again. I really wished I had lugged a book along at that point.
The next morning we were up at 7'ish am. I managed to remain much dryer last night than the night before. The rain stopped sometime before we awoke. We ate breakfast in our pods, packed up and hit the trail by 8:30am. On our way out, we noticed a ton of mushrooms. There was quite a mushrooming done on the way out of the woods this morning.
Even though we didn't get to do the route we intended to, I still had a great weekend out. I'm heading to the doctor on Friday, 10/13 to get checked out and to make sure everything is okay for the Grand Canyon trip. I can't wait to hit the trail again!
Pictures:http://www.soundsofthedesert.org/cranberry2006.htm
