Welcome back for another backpacking adventure! In this episode we spend three days in the Roaring Plains West Wilderness, Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia. Roaring Plains is a lesser known wilderness area. Despite being location next to the super popular Dolly Sods Wilderness, Roaring Plains is rarely trafficked. As a matter of fact, we actually ran into one of the employees responsible for maintaining the wilderness on our hike and she said she has only seen six people on trail the entire season.

I've been to Roaring Plains once before with Sara, but we only trekked the eastern side of the area. This time, we decided to hit up the western side as well. Our ultimate goal was to summit Haystack Knob, which is the most prominent point of elevation up on the plateau. We never did end up accomplishing this goal. Day one was supposed to be around 9.5 miles of hiking, but by the end of the day we ended up putting in over 11 miles. The last 1/4 mile was the worst as we basically climbed up a hill like we were climbing a ladder.

The first day was longer than we expected, and we also hiked through a ton of stinging nettle, thorns and scrub brush. The "trail" on this side of the wilderness is an old railroad grade that nature reclaimed long ago. The hiking was long and hard and we ended up in camp after dark.

We had much higher hopes on day two as we had stumbled across a trail that wasn't on the map. This allowed us to hike along an access road that was much more opened and allowed us to travel more freely. It also opened up some views along the road and boosted our morale after the disappointment of day one. Once we were off the railroad grade and onto an official trail, the experience changed.

The highlight of day two and the entire trip in general was hiking along the Canyon Rim Trail. This trail lives up to its name as it hugs the rim of a 1,000' high canyon for about three miles. Some of the best mountain views are seen from the clearings here and it is an absolute must-see for your West Virginia travels.

We capped off day two by getting into camp about 30 minutes before sunset and managed to find a cozy campsite nestled amongst some spruce trees up on the plateau. Roaring Plains definitely lived up to its name on this occasion and we had sustained 20+ mph winds the entire night and into the morning. Being a wilderness area, Roaring Plains is pitch black at night because there is no light pollution. I spent about 30 minutes playing around with my phone to take some nice pictures of the stars.

Day three was short and sweet as we only hiked about 3-4 miles on the way out. As we descended down from the Roaring Plains we walked past some cool boulder fields, spruce groves and rhododendron thickets. Overall, Roaring Plains is an awesome place to backpack, but I'm unsure of whether or not I'll return to the western half. Maybe one day I'll return taking the easier path and attempt to catch a sunset or sunrise atop Haystack Knob. As always, thank you so much for joining us on our backpacking adventures!

If you want to see all of the gear I brought with me on this trip, check out the link below!
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If you want to plan a trip to the Roaring Plains Wilderness, here is my GPX file that includes multiple routes and waypoints for water sources and campsites!
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Join our Facebook group and ask us some questions and tag along on our annual trip!

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