As I mentioned previously, our first day of riding was wet and cold. And that was a real shame, because we rode on some really great roads. The best road of all was WV-20 from Buckhannon to Pipestem. It was awesome. Smooth pavement. Lots of curves. Winding through rural areas and forest. You can follow this link to the Google Map of the route if you are interested.
Hubby and I know we’ll be going back to that road one day. When the weather is nice and we can REALLY enjoy it even more.
As the saying goes, though, a bad day of riding is still better than a great day at the office. Even if we were COLD and wet, it was fun.
We actually stayed at Pipestem Resort State Park for two nights. Not because of the weather. That was the plan from the beginning. I knew we could either spend some time riding in the area or exploring the park or both. It’s a resort park, meaning there’s a full-service lodge (think hotel) plus other cool stuff like cottages and cabins, golf and swimming pools, a nature center and even an aerial tram (more on that later), just to name a few.
That shot of Hubby (he swears he was smiling) was taken in front of McKeever Lodge, where we stayed. There are actually two lodges at Pipestem. There’s McKeever Lodge, which you can drive to, and Mountain Creek Lodge, which sits along a river in a gorge and is only accessible by aerial tramway.
Our room was one floor above ground level overlooking the playground and gorge.
It was still pretty cool and overcast on Monday morning, so we opted for a walking tour of the park.
Our first stop was the Canyon Rim Center, which is where the aerial tramway is located.
The ride down is free, but you have to pay to ride back up. We both found that sort of funny. Once down there, who wouldn’t want to pay for a ride back to the top?
There’s a river at the foot of the gorge. The Mountain Creek Lodge sits right beside the Bluestone River.
The foliage wasn’t nearly as colorful as I’d hoped, but it was still pretty.
It was a very rocky place. There were rocks of every shape and size along the river bank.
There were also HUGE rocks hanging from the wall of the gorge. If we didn’t want to pay for the tramway, that’s the “hill” we would’ve had to climb. We, of course, paid to ride.
By the time we were headed back to the lodge, there was actually blue sky poking through the clouds. That’s was VERY good news. Because we had to ride into town for gas (we were both on fumes). Plus I wanted to check out this scenic overlook I’d seen the previous day on the way in.
This overlook is right beside WV-20, just north of Hinton, West Virginia. And Hinton is 12 miles north of Pipestem.
We knew the good weather wouldn’t last forever, so we didn’t stick around for long.
We also had to stop at Bluestone Lake, which is also beside WV-20, about halfway between Hinton and Pipestem.
If you look to the far left in the picture above you’ll see the road. And the rocky cliffs. Try to ignore the ugly black power line, okay?
The lodge has this great lobby, with a fireplace, and a wall of windows so you have a really nice view of the gorge.
That’s not Hubby on the sofa. He was in the gift shop buying a book (he forgot his). I can’t make fun of him for forgetting a book. I forgot my sweatshirt, which is one of the reasons I was so cold the previous day. You can bet I bought one on Monday morning. AND a cool jacket that makes me look like a park ranger. 🙂
That’s about it for our Pipestem visit. Shortly after I took this picture in the lobby, we had dinner and then went to bed. We had another long day of riding to prepare for…
