The Gaudineer Picnic Area is an exquisite picnic area for anyone who loves privacy, as most of the picnic tables are secluded in the spruce old growth forest and cannot be seen from other picnic tables or from the parking lot. The entire area is known as Gaudineer Scenic Area and includes the loop trail through the forest to the overlook atop this mountain in the Monongahela National Forest, where a nice bench awaits those who come here. Not too far from this location is the Gaudineer Old Growth Trail, the subject of next week's pictures.
This is the East Fork Campground in Durbin, West Virginia. The pictures show the beauty from right next to the East Fork Greenbrier River. Temperatures this day went down into the lower 30s (F) overnight, which made spending any time in the bathrooms chilly at best. The bathrooms here are not heated, so I opted to forgo a shower since this was just an overnight stay. As you can see, there also are no parking pads, just grass. There is a historical train depot next to the campground which offers train rides. This was once a bustling small town which, like many small towns across the US, is in an advanced state of decay.
Locust Springs Picnic Area is located just inside the Virginia State Line on FR 106 in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests. It isn't very far from Thornwood, West Virginia. Unfortunately, this particular facility has seen better days and needs some serious attention. The sign above was very difficult to read, although one can just make out the words and numbers up close to it. The grass and weeds hadn't yet been mowed for the season, some picnic tables are rotten and moss-covered, and the fencing is also rotten and some parts broken. There are vault toilets here but no running water. Our original plan was to eat lunch here, but since there wasn't any pavilion here and the tables were wet and the campground was only a few miles away, we ended up eating there instead.
