Marlinton to Cass

The only restaurant open in Marlinton on Sunday night is the Greenbrier Grille. The review of it at the Inn said that the food was average and the service inconsistent. That was an understatement! The food was not so bad. We had tomato basil soup and avocado panetta. Eventually. The waitress was pleasant enough, but there seemed to be no method or organization to how the place was run, so it took much longer than it should have to have dinner. We relaxed afterward on the front porch, where we met two brothers, one from the Lower East Side of New York and one from Boston, traveling together on their motorcycles. They were loving the winding and climbing on roads like the one we had experienced that morning. Then came Ben, a young man in his late 20s who had recently sold all of his possessions and was visiting family in the east before heading across the country on his motorcycle to live in San Francisco. He was eager for the adventure and gave us his blog address: www.anywhereness.org. We are looking forward to following his travels. After chatting for a while, we headed up to bed, lulled to sleep by the sixty mile ride that day and the rain falling outside. Perfect timing on the rain: it was finished by the time we got up and ready to roll, and was enough to cut down on dust on the trail but not make it too muddy. We had the 25 miles to Cass before us. Although it might seem boring to do the same trail, going in the opposite direction gives you a chance to see things you missed on the way down. Like the campsite on the river with the Ford Explorer firmly lodged on rocks in the middle of the river. We weren't sure if it had been there Friday; it actually had all the signs of a wild Saturday night event, preceded by those famous words: Watch this! We really wanted to know the story, but had to make up our own version, since the campsite was deserted. We also came upon a beautiful waterfall that we had missed on the way down, just because of the angle to the road. It was one of those places that doesn't photograph nearly as beautiful as it is in real life, so although we took some pictures we also spent a good amount of time just staring. We had decided to ride all the way to Cass. Our car was actually in a parking lot about a half-mile from the actual end of the trail. Cass was a company town for a wood pulp mill that served a paper mill. The railroad track was originally built to serve the logging industry, and connected Cass to Lewisburg, a much bigger town. The town consists of about 40 identical company houses, painted white and perched in rows on the hillside. They can now be rented by tourists in groups of up to 12. There is a steam locomotive train that does various tours into the mountains, a general store with a restaurant and hiking trails. It was surprisingly enjoyable, since I hadn't really expected much to be there. It looks like a great place for a group road trip. On the way home, we couldn't resist a climb up to the lodge at Snowshoe ski resort. It is a much higher elevation that either Seven Springs or Holiday Valley, the two resorts I'm most familiar with. Though I can't imagine driving there in snowy weather, the views are magnificent and it looks like good skiing. So all in all, a short but satisfying break. We highly recommend the area and the trail.