Thursday, November 10, 2011

Seneca Shadows Campground

To get back to our latest West Virginia adventure...

After we left Kumbrabow State Forest, we traveled over to the Seneca Rocks area to get a spot at the Seneca Shadows campground. It's a National Forest campground but is no longer administered by the National Forest and is instead leased out to a private outfit. This generally means a reduction in services and I was sad to see that this is the case with Seneca Shadows.

When we arrived there was no one on duty anywhere. The signs instructed us to pick out a campsite that had not been reserved (sites that were reserved were posted as such) and then go to the campground host to pay. So we picked out a site, set up our trailer and went to the host site. Even after some time, there was no one at the host site. About an hour later we returned to try again to pay. Finally, a very, very, very elderly couple emerged. Apparently they'd been there the whole time but are so hard of hearing they didn't perceive the knocks on their trailer door. We gave them our site number and prepared to pay. However, they informed us that the site we'd chosen had been reserved but that they hadn't had time to mark it as such. We'd have to move.

Dang!

So we went back to the site, put everything back in the truck and hooked up the trailer. Then we went to the site they told us was vacant and available. Imagine our surprise when we found it occupied. About that time the very, very, very old fellow arrived in his truck to tell us that he was mistaken. To make it up to us he offered us a site with full hookups at the base price--water, electric, and sewer. We didn't really like the site all that much, but we took it for the convenience of having full hookups, and the view of Seneca Rock from that spot was impressive.

And that's where we stayed for the remainder of our trip. I can't really recommend Seneca Shadows. Since it's been handed off to a private company it's not run all that well. It was hard to find employees for help and some of the facilities were not operating well--leaking pipes, dirty bathrooms, etc. I wish the National Forest would revoke their concession and put public employees back to work.


The best thing about our campsite was the view.

Be sure to click on these photos to see them in greater detail!

This is a major rock climbing destination. They say it's one of the best places to learn the sport of rock climbing.


Amazing, but I don't want to involve myself in the sport, but I admire those who engage in it.

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