Babcock State Park

Babcock State Park, West Virginia; September of 1998.

Explored! #477 on Friday, October 19, 2007, but no longer in the top 500. Thanks! The Narrow Gauge Trail at West Virginia's Babock State Park, in the New River gorge. The tracks were pulled up decades ago, and the trestles have collapsed, but the ties remain.... The Babcock Coal and Lumber Company's Manns Creek Railway carried coal down to the Chessie at the bottom of the Gorge, and lumber to the mill at Landisburg. This track was the coal line from Clifftop; the lumber mainly travelled on the higher track. Photo taken in September, 1998, with my Nikon N90s.

Here's the Glade Creek Mill in context. The State Park's attractive headquarters building is to the left of the picture, and the creek is dammed below the HQ building to create what was once a swimming pool. This is the actual view when you come up the Sewell Road from our cabin. To my eyes, a very attractive place. When we first started staying at Babcock, the HQ building housed an excellent restaurant, with a selection of well-prepared dishes. A couple years later the restaurant's quality had significantly deteriorated, and eventually the effort failed. The former restaurant's now been occupied by the park's gift shop. That used to be your corner-of-the-building collection of t-shirts and ashtrays; now it's a fairly serious place with interesting things. Joan picked up a calendar; I bought a book. This photo is best LARGE .

Glade Creek Mill at West Virginia's Babcock State Park, shortly after a heavy downpour in July of 1997. =================== Had a couple reminders of this place today: * A friend has a photo of the mill on her PC. I told her I visit there regularly, and that Joan and I will be staying in one of Babcock's cabins in a few weeks. Sue was surprised; wanted to know more about the mill, and the park. * And today's mail contained a flyer from Mountain River Adventures, featuring a Special Offer if we book our rafting trip before June 30: Free gas! One gallon of free gas. One gallon. Wow.

This is Cabin 10 at West Virginia's Babcock State Park. It's pretty much like Cabin 3, where we stayed, like these folks , in 2001--except it has fewer steps (38, by my count). Both cabins are above Glade Creek, though on opposite sides of the valley; 10 is past the mill, then down the hill on the Old Sewell Road. As you can see, the cabin's stairway's been rebuilt this season; we've also got new pots and pans and are feeling a little spoilt.... Photo taken Monday evening. Old Sewell Road used to run five miles or so to the site of Sewell on the C&O line along the New River. The road was originally the "main line" for the narrow gauge Mann's Creek Railway, then was converted to a narrow and precarious automobile road when the rails were pulled in the fifties. It's recently become impassible by car; Joan and I hiked a mile or two on Tuesday morning and discovered two washouts that the park isn't planning to fix. (The second wash is pretty spectacular, and if my good camera got any decent shots you'll see them.) A foot and bicycle trail, now, and pretty inconvenient on a bike. Babcock State Park was a gift to West Virginia from Babcock Coal and Coke, an operation which ran coal mines at Clifftop and a lumbering operation headquartered at Landisburg. The first purpose of the rail line was to get coal down the hill, but the same road was a traditional lumbering railroad with all the fixings--Shay-type locomotives, lightweight track, even a sharply curved trestle. When they closed down the line around the end of 1954, Mann's Creek got a flurry of publicity in the railfan press; the last train run on the line, on May 30, 1955, was the road's first fan trip. Today's been quite wet--really serious rain for six or eight hours. Glade Creek's running wild in the channel tonight, which looks spectacular and sounds quite impressive. (Originally a blog post written in July of 2004.)

The sluice which feeds the water wheel at Glade Creek Mill, Babcock State Park, near Clifftop, West Virginia. One purpose of this photo was to show that it's possible to compose an excellent picture at Glade Creek Mill without recreating the standard shot. (Of course, I've taken my share of those, as well. Some photos are irresistable.) That's my explanation for the shot. Joan made a similar photo, perhaps for other reasons.

Babcock State Park has 4,000 or so wild acres within the New River Gorge, spectacular views into the gorge (Joan's pic), and a few really interesting historic sites , but this mill is its most famous feature. If you search the web, you'll find thousands of versions of this photo . A few months ago we discovered a picture of the mill on Joan's mom's wall; Thelma didn't realize we'd been there, she just liked the photo. So do I. Very picturesque, but only marginally authentic . Anyway, our cabin was down the crick a half mile or so. The mill's not why we visit the park, but it's certainly worth a photograph or seven.

Clifftop, West Virginia. Camera: Olympus Camedia C50 Photo by Joel Dinda Commentary on a dabbler's journal

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA