An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

Yesterday was the fiftieth anniversary of the first American manned space flight. This morning I went for a run. I jogged across the field at Bluemont park in the flat early morning light. The brown winter grass was covered with frost. No one else was around; the only sound was my feet crunching the ground. It felt very much like taking a jog on another planet. If a local park can feel this otherworldly, what must the real experience of being in space be like?

Canaan Valley is a place of mixed signals. On the one hand, it gives off a feeling that its best times, the boom times of coal extraction and timber harvesting, are behind it. Driving along one sees tumbledown shacks and dilapidated mobile homes, and many of the storefronts in the towns of Thomas and Davis stand empty. The area’s amazing natural beauty has, however, given it a second wind as a mountain resort town, though when bad luck hits – like this year’s snowless winter – that wind dies down to an asthmatic breeze. Still, the towns offer an enticing mix of mountain bike shops, art galleries, small inns, antiques, and funky restaurants. The proprietors tend to be outdoorsy types themselves, more friendly to visitors than mountain-folk stereotypes would lead you to expect. It was this post-coal mountain paradise that served, as usual, as the destination for my kayaking friends’ annual ski trip. Except this year the ski trip wasn’t a ski trip. It’s been an almost snow...