Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: west virginia

Babcock State Park, West Virginia; September of 1998.

This is below Hawks Nest (Ansted), in West Virginia, from the boat landing at Hawks Nest State Park. July or August of 1998. The river's calm mostly because it's backed up behind the Hawks Nest dam. Photographed with my Nikon N90s and scanned from the negative.

At West Virginia's Babcock State Park. We stayed in this cabin several years back ; I wanted a different view to commemorate this visit. (If you compare the pics, you can see that the steps have aged considerably over the past six years.) Glade Creek is further down the hill; in sight from the porch, but it takes some effort to reach. The cabins were WPA projects, so they're visibly old, albeit well maintained. Generally speaking, the woods grew up around them; there'd been a major logging camp a bit up the hill into the twentieth century. We spent much of the week on the porch. Relaxing. Worthwhile. And gorgeous. =================== Found a nice video of Cabin 13 on YouTube showing what Babcock's cabins are like, beginning on the very skinny road down from the mill .

Taken at West Virginia's Babcock State Park with my Nikon N90s in late September of 1999. Compare this photo Joan took last summer from a nearby location. We're looking down the Manns Creek Gorge toward the New River. After a severe downhill run, Manns Creek joins the New at what used to be Sewell, where I'm told there are ruins of coking ovens. I've complained from time to time about the high-speed film I've been scanning from my photo collection, but that's a little misleading. My pattern, historically, was to pick a specific film each year and shoot almost exclusively using that product until the next year. This means that I've made photographs with all sorts of films--so the scanning problems I've had of late were largely because I've been choosing to scan years with difficult films. This photo, in contrast, came out very nicely.

From our West Virginia trip last month.

Kaymoor One Mine , New River Gorge, West Virginia. The down stairway goes to Kaymoor Bottom. Eight hundred steps, we're told; we weren't up to it. The miners apparently scrambled up a trail every morning....

This waterfall's on the trail to Kaymoor One mine site in West Virginia's New River Valley. It's a tall thing; the photo shows less than half of the cascade. Just of bit of Joan showing on the bridge.... Photo taken with my Nikon N90s

Clifftop, West Virginia

When we visit West Virginia's New River Gorge, it rains. Always. One result is that everything is GREEN. Not sure what this plant is, but our cabin at Babcock State Park was surrounded by them.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Clifftop, West Virginia. Camera: Olympus Camedia C50 Photo by Joel Dinda Commentary on a dabbler's journal

Babcock State Park has 4,000 or so wild acres within the New River Gorge, spectacular views into the gorge (Joan's pic), and a few really interesting historic sites , but this mill is its most famous feature. If you search the web, you'll find thousands of versions of this photo . A few months ago we discovered a picture of the mill on Joan's mom's wall; Thelma didn't realize we'd been there, she just liked the photo. So do I. Very picturesque, but only marginally authentic . Anyway, our cabin was down the crick a half mile or so. The mill's not why we visit the park, but it's certainly worth a photograph or seven.

Camera: Nikon N90s Another photo from our July, 2003, trip to the New River Gorge. Here's a different view of what still stands at the Kaymoor One mine site. The grill at the center of the photo protects a ventilation opening; the mine's entrance is behind the concrete building down the trail. This was a major mine, and during its prime this shelf on the canyon wall must have been a terribly busy place. Four decades after the operation closed, most of the mining structures are still standing but nature is reclaiming them and it certainly looks very different from what the miners must have known. Balancing preservation, safety, and natural decay is a challenge for the Parks Service, particularly in the parks in the National Heritage program areas. This location appears to test those efforts.

The New River Gorge has dozens of ghost towns.... Down below New River Bridge is a reasonably easy trail to the ruin of the Kaymoor mine. Properly speaking, this is not the Kaymoor ghost town; these are the buildings at the entrance to Kaymoor One. This mine closed in 1962, and the buildings have been neglected for four decades. The mine was about two thirds of the way up a thousand-foot hill. Most of the miners lived above the mine at Kaymoor Top, which is still inhabited, or below at Kaymoor Bottom. Besides housing for miners, Kaymoor Bottom had the rail connection to the outside world, and featured a battery of coke ovens for much of the mine's history. This town was abandoned more or less with the mine. There's a stair from the mine to Kaymoor Bottom, but Joan and I weren't up to the 800 steps.... The road below New River Bridge was once the sole roadway which crossed the gorge. It's a skinny, twisty, scenic path down the valley wall, across the bridge at Fayette Station, then back up the other side, crossing back and forth under the bridge in a series of switchbacks. Very scenic, but pretty intimidating.

Glade Creek Mill at West Virginia's Babcock State Park, shortly after a heavy downpour in July of 1997. =================== Had a couple reminders of this place today: * A friend has a photo of the mill on her PC. I told her I visit there regularly, and that Joan and I will be staying in one of Babcock's cabins in a few weeks. Sue was surprised; wanted to know more about the mill, and the park. * And today's mail contained a flyer from Mountain River Adventures, featuring a Special Offer if we book our rafting trip before June 30: Free gas! One gallon of free gas. One gallon. Wow.

Joan at the New River Bridge, in 1999.

Here's the Glade Creek Mill in context. The State Park's attractive headquarters building is to the left of the picture, and the creek is dammed below the HQ building to create what was once a swimming pool. This is the actual view when you come up the Sewell Road from our cabin. To my eyes, a very attractive place. When we first started staying at Babcock, the HQ building housed an excellent restaurant, with a selection of well-prepared dishes. A couple years later the restaurant's quality had significantly deteriorated, and eventually the effort failed. The former restaurant's now been occupied by the park's gift shop. That used to be your corner-of-the-building collection of t-shirts and ashtrays; now it's a fairly serious place with interesting things. Joan picked up a calendar; I bought a book. This photo is best LARGE .

Same bridge, different view. This is where you get after you take the twisty road down the side of the gorge. The original bridge at Fayette Station, West Virginia, was built in 1889. It was closed in 1977 when the high bridge overhead opened, then refurbished and reopened in 1998. Several of my friends are rafting the New River this week; only last week did they realize that when I said "We're vacationing in West Virginia" I was going to the same place they were going for rafting. This is where their trip will end. Photo taken July 21, 2004. Camera: Nikon N90s