Hawk Recreation Area

Rothrock State Forest, PA to Hawk Recreation Area, WV | Fort Roberdeau Historic Site, PA | Camping & Hiking in Hawk Recreation Area, WV | August 2024

Today was a Monday morning, and we had exactly one week before Curtis needed to be in Wilmington, NC for training. We had done a lot of traveling around this summer, all around the East coast, and had done this specific drive a number of times already — if you look at our county map, you’ll see that we’ve really covered most counties in the Appalachians. It was also much too hot to take a new route on the coast or the ‘in between land’ of the Virginia Piedmont. At this point, driving every day and having to constantly find new places to sleep didn’t sound too appealing. Curtis also had several meetings throughout the week and needed to have cell service. All this to say, what we really wanted to do this week was find one spot to plant where we could both get work done and do outdoorsy things without having to deal with the busyness of the East Coast. Luckily, we knew of the perfect spot where we could just exist in the woods for free for the week, and that was at a campground in West Virginia.

After our morning routine, we left our perfect little campsite in Rothrock State Forest and drove back down the mountain. Before beginning our longer drive South, we drove a little out of our way to a historic site: Roberdeau State Historic Site. This is the site of Fort Roberdeau, a revolutionary era stockade built to protect local Lead mining operations crucial to the munitions supply to General Washington in Valley Forge. Everything here is a reconstruction, though some of the out buildings are probably original to the mid-19th century when settlers took over the area. We walked around the Fort (Charlotte wasn’t allowed inside) and enjoyed part of a scavenger hunt. We actually missed the big ‘Fort Days’ event by a day, which is probably for the better knowing us.

Once we were finished here, we got back on the road and took the most direct route South to our chosen spot for the week. We crossed into Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and then back into West Virginia, and made our way into the Allegheny Mountains to Hawk Recreation Area. We had stayed here once last year when traveling between NC and PA, and noted it as a nice free spot, not super busy, and that we had cell service here. After getting passed a long one-lane road construction zone on US-52 and the forest road leading to the campground which was a little rough after all the recent rain, we finally made it to the campground and claimed a spot. At first glance, it looked like there were at least 4 other groups camping here based on the number of tents, but no one showed up to sleep in them that week so I guess they were abandoned. Unfortunately they also left behind a lot of trash. But besides that, we felt comfortable here and settled in for a peaceful week in the woods.

The one struggle we soon ran into was getting enough solar to keep our van batteries charged. After a day and a half, we were already starting to worry that we wouldn’t be able to stay without running the van for a while to let the alternator charge the battery back up. However, on our second full day here, the person that was in the group site left, and we noticed that that spot was much more open and got a lot more sun during the day. We moved the van over to that spot, and then we were fine for the rest of the week.

Curtis: On the third day, I was finally done with my meetings for the week and was a bit worked out so I decided to go on a long hike. Unfortunately, none of the nearby peaks meet my prominence goal, but there was a county high point with some promising views and I mostly just wanted the exercise.

After making sure Jess, Charlotte, and the van were all set up, I followed the forest roads through the woods up towards the ridge where I met up with the Tuscarora Trail – yet another Long Distance Appalachian Trail. This I ended up following North along the WV/VA border to ‘Eagle Rock’ a nice overlook into Virginia and where most people stop.

But of course I kept going following the steady ridge. Like my previous hike along the Pennsylvania ridges, there really wasn’t much elevation gain. It was just a long ‘green tunnel’ as they say. Towards the end I crossed a powerline cut that gave some views out towards the higher WV peaks, but then it was straight back into the trees. I eventually reached my county highpoint, called ‘The Pinnacle’ but there weren’t any views and I had walked close to 7 miles to get here.

Thoroughly tired, I retraced my steps back the way I came. A thoroughly uneventful hike that only a peakbagger would actually bother to do….that and a long distance hiker.

Jess: Besides working and Curtis’ longer hike, we enjoyed lots of outdoors time at our site with Charlotte, and going for walks up and down the forest road. The weather was very pleasant the whole time we were here, and it was just the relaxing week we needed before continuing our drive to North Carolina and resuming Curtis’ fall work schedule. We’re thankful for hidden gems like this out East where we can get away from the world and camp for free in the woods!