SubscribeSo onto the adventure which is what I'm sure you all are reading this blog for! Kumbrabow is easy to get to. There are several ways to access the park. We took Rt. 219 south to Huttonsville and turned right onto Kumbrabow Road. The road here is sometimes paved, sometimes gravel, but is in good condition. It's about 8 miles from Rt. 219 to the park headquarters. I did my research online at their website http://www.kumbrabow.com/. There are several trails within the park that all sounded really good, but I decided to turn 3 trails into a nice circuit hike of about 2.5 miles. We hiked the Mowry Trail (0.5 miles; red blazes) to the Mill Ridge Fire Trail (1 mile; green blazes) and finished on the Clay Run Trail (0.75 miles; white blazes). We parked at the park headquarters (which is open for souvenirs and information 8am to 4pm weekdays). The trailhead for Clay Run Trail is directly across the forest road from the park headquarters. If you hike this circuit the direction I've given, you'll end your hike here. To start the hike, you'll need to turn right onto the forest road and walk on the forest road for less than 0.25 miles to reach the trailhead for the Mowry Trail.
The Mowry Trail is the most difficult portion of this circuit hike, which is why I'm glad I put it first. From the trailhead, you descend sharply to Mill Creek. As I said before, it has been rainy up here in the hills. So the trail leading down to the creek was slick mud, but it didn't last long (maybe 100 feet). The next challenge (at least for me) is crossing the creek, which today was up over our boots. I'm terrible at creek crossings; I tend to get pretty anxious. If the water is shallow enough (meaning, not over the tops of my boots), I'll just walk through it since my boots are pretty waterproof. But it's something called rock-hopping that just gets me all worked up. Scott is able to rock-hop a stream even if there seems no good way to rock-hop the stream. Today, I started out trying to rock-hop the creek and then thought "Hey, why am I trying to balance myself on these slick rocks in boots when I can walk across barefoot and my toes can curl around the rocks?" So, I took off my socks and boots and walked across the stream. The water was cold, but I felt much calmer walking across the creek this way than rock-hopping it. If you look at the pictures below the creek,doesn't seem like much, but as I said creek crossings make me anxious. After crossing Mill Creek, Mowry Trail really starts. This trail has a kick-your-butt mentality, but it's worth it in the end. It is 0.5 miles of non-stop uphill. You keep climbing and climbing, wondering just how can this 0.5 miles feel like 5?! We did have a really cool discovery on this trail: a red eft. A red eft is a juvenile red-spotted newt. He stayed still long enough for me to take his picture, which is below. At the end of Mowry Trail, we met the Mill Ridge Fire Trail. This is a wonderful trail. We were walking along the ridge, under a rich canopy of trees and on a trail that's footbed is luxuriously soft. There were birds singing and a wonderful breeze traveling through the trees. It was hiker heaven! Towards the end of the 1 mile, there is a picnic table at an amazing overlook. Here there is an phenomenal view of Tygart Valley and Cheat Mountain. We sat down and had some homemade trail mix. It was an absolutely beautiful day that just made me feel very in tune with God and nature. After our nice little break, we headed a bit further on Mill Ridge Fire Trail to meet the trailhead for Clay Run Trail. The first half of this trail is a rapid descent from the ridge. The trail was again a bit slick, but nothing really that bad. Eventually the trail flattened out and was a nice little hike until we met up with Mill Creek again. Armed with the knowledge from my previous breakthrough, I took my boots off and walked across the creek. Once we crossed the creek, we could see the forest road and the park headquarters. We were so close I didn't even bother to put my boots back on HA HA!
Today's circuit hike of Mowry Trail--Mill Ridge Fire Trail--Clay Run Trail and Kumbrabow State Forest get an enthusiastic 5 out of 5 hiking sticks!
