Driving Across the Continent in December (~100-6329')

After all that fuss over the mold in my car, I knew I couldn't make it through another five months of Redmond rain. It was time to head home to the East Coast, where I could cuss my way through horrible traffic underneath blue skies again.

So I packed my stuff and plotted my eastward route. This being December, I figured I'd stick to the interstates--no sense detouring to parks when everything's closed for the season--and take I-90 to I-25 to I-80 to I-29 to I-70 to I-64 to I-81 to I-66 to home. Quite the simple trip, compared to how I'd gotten there.

And then I called my parents to tell them my plans. "Are you going to need tire chains for that?" my dad asked. "And what about the weather?" my mom added. "Is it safe to drive? What if you get caught in a snowstorm?"

Snow? Tire chains? I hadn't even thought of those. Nothing had frozen down in Redmond... but the Cascades were a completely different story. I looked into it and learned that Snoqualmie Pass (I-90's route through the range) had already received dozens of feet of snow that fall. East of there, I'd need to cross three major passes through the Rockies: Lookout Pass on the Montana-Idaho border, Homestake Pass over the Continental Divide, and Bozeman Pass east of Bozeman, MT. And, as I'd learned on my westward trip, the Great Plains were prone to blizzards and ice storms as far south as Kansas. Snow and sub-freezing temperatures were a certainty; the only question was how much I'd get... and whether my little front-wheel-drive sedan could make it through.

Highpoint #3: Spruce Knob, WV (4863')

People these days expect things to be instantaneous, or as nearly so as physically possible. And why not, when all the information of the Internet can be theirs for a few finger-taps, when it’s odd if an online purchase doesn’t show up at one’s door within a few days, when cars shoot in straight lines from city to city at 70 miles per hour. Speed and access is the norm; they want it all, and they want it now.

Well, mountains don’t quite allow for that, especially those as dense and jumbled as West Virginia’s. One can blow a hole through a single ridge, a la Sideling Hill, to put in an interstate, but it would take nukes to flatten West Virginia’s terrain into tractability. A road allowing consistent travel at 40 mph is a feat of engineering there. Similarly, each cell tower’s reach is limited to the valley it overlooks… well, most of it. If the valley’s scant population warrants a tower at all, which it probably doesn’t.

I mention all this to explain why, not long after leaving Seneca Rocks, I found myself stranded with no cell coverage and only a blurry, half-loaded Google Map to point me towards my destination.

Side trip: Seneca Rocks, WV

I rolled into Seneca Rocks, WV that evening with an hour of daylight to spare. At first I wasn't sure if I was in the right place, but then I looked up:

Yup, looks rocky to me.

The Rocks is one of the top outdoor rock climbing sites of the East. Climbers come from all over the country to scale the nearly four hundred routes up the quartzite crags, which range from beginner-level to some of the most technically challenging climbs out there. My plans were decidedly less ambitious, however: to spend the night beneath the rocks at the appropriately-named Seneca Shadows campground en route to the WV high point.

By the time I got there, though, the campground was closed, as was the Rocks’ visitor center.