I spent the last four days in eastern West Virginia, in the Canaan Valley and vicinity. The first half of the trip involved participation in the annual meeting of the West Virginia Master Naturalists group, and I appreciate Andrea Dalton inviting me. Great time with lots of great people - the WVMN is large and active. As I came down the entrance drive to the lodge where we were based, late in the day last Friday, I glanced over to see a bear ambling through a lower parking lot. I stopped, he ended up passing by fairly close, I had a camera at the ready, and bagged this shot. It was a good omen of many interesting things to come.
I finally made a stop at fabled Blackwater Falls in Tucker County, West Virginia today. It lives up to the hype, and is well worth the stop. The falls lures about 900,000 visitors annually. That's a bit too many people for my taste, but as fate would have it, I was there early on this Monday morning.
NO ONE was there for a much-appreciated 45 minutes or so, enabling me to get this rare shot - the staircase to the lower platform, with not a soul on it.
Even though I only had less than two days to explore, I made it to some of the iconic regional hotspots, such as Dolly Sods and Cathedral State Park, with its gargantuan old-growth trees. Plus, there was heavy-duty mothing into the wee hours on two nights, and many interesting moths were tallied.
I'll surely make some more posts about this trip and some of the interesting sightings.
