Trip Report: “We Otter Go Backpacking!” (Otter Creek Wilderness, West Virginia) (August 30 to September 1, 2024) (32 miles)

I slept fitfully. After most backpacking trips, when exhaustion meets a hot shower and then a soft bed at home, I sleep like an otter—the small mammal known for sleeping 11 hours at a time. Last night was different. I quickly fell asleep early, but I dreamt I was walking through cornrows in a farm. At first, I was walking along the rows easily with the walls of towering corn on my left and right. I extended my arms so my fingertips could brush the corn stalks as I passed. The light moisture from the morning dew I agitated spritzed my face pleasantly. Impulsively, I turned right and started walking through the corn stalks. As I pushed through row after row I swiped at the leaves slapping my face. My feet tripped over the tangled base of the stalks. Branches of the stalks slashed my shins, causing a number of bloodless cuts. Then, the corn stalks turned into rhododendrons, the leafy, wiry jungle-like plants well-suited for a Jurassic Park movie. I started going steeply uphill. The temperature rose and the humidity completed the rain forest experience. Occasional breezes on my sweat-soaked shirt felt great when they came. I spied a faint path through the rhododendrons and kept walking and walking and walking, unconcerned about the accumulating scratches on my shins or the occasional balance trips. I still had to push through them, but it was manageable—like a maze. It went on and on. I smiled. I was in otter rapture.

I woke up and checked my clock. It was 3:30 a.m. I looked at my shins. Cuts covered the front of both. They lightly stung and itched—enough to notice, but not enough to really hurt or need scratching. I got out of bed and started writing of my previous day expedition to West Virginia’s Otter Creek Wilderness.

DCUL regularly backpacks the Otter Creek Wilderness in West Virginia. For one reason or the otter I never did so. Knowing nothing of this section of the Monongahela National Forest, I naturally looked at prior DCUL trip reports of prior treks. I was stunned. Not a single one featured any otter puns—or even mentioned the cute little water mammals! I can fix that, I thought.

I wrote a trip posting seasoned with otter jokes. The trip instantly filled up. Some, like Veronica, did not closely read the post and would have preferred an otter-joke-free weekend. Others, like James (“Otter”) jumped head-first into my weekend-long “dad joke.” He even dressed himself in a bright, colorful outfit to mimic them. When I told him otters are dark brown and never appear in bright colors like male peacocks or ducks do, and that he was probably thinking of the otters in cartoons, his face fell. When I asked him who told him otters liked bright colors, he looked up, smiled and said, “my motter and fotter!”

And so, the Otter Wilderness trip began.

(Actually, this exchange is only based on a true story. His wardrobe was real; the dialogue was imagined. Otter is a smart, good natured friend who doesn’t usually dress like he did on this trip. He bought his outfit on sale. I’ll discuss the hazard of chasing bargains a bit later in the micoreconomics portion of this report).

I quickly learned that the Otter Creek Wilderness was so much more than the obvious jokes about its name. Our route, a loop I borrowed from a trip led by Mark (“Brightside”), was 32 miles, circumnavigating the Wilderness. Like the better known and nearby Dolly Sods Wilderness, Otter Creek features a large plateau almost 4,000 feet high with a strong scenic stream cutting through it. Unlike Dolly Sods, the plateau has few sweeping open pastures on top. Instead, it is covered with rhododendrons and pine trees. Like Dolly Sods, the trails are lightly maintained and barely marked, making the experience feel like bushwhacking. However, those same thick rhododendrons eases navigation. Even though they are so overgrown one can barely see the trail, there is only one way to go. If you push through the plants and keep going, you are on the trail. If a rhododendron trunk blocks your passage, you are off trail. One may not ignore a map, though. Trail junctions are usually camouflaged and easily missed.

It is because the vegetation was so thick that my shins are now so raw with cuts from the rhododendron branches and the numerous heel and shin level pricker bushes.

Our trip began Friday night with the drive from Fairfax to the Lower Glady Dispersed Campground a few blocks from the Myilus trailhead. A trailhead is really the opened door to a hiking trail and this was likely the inspiration for singer-songwriter, Pete Townshend, when he wrote his 1980s hit song, “Let Myilus Open the Door.”

I’ll never again camp at Lower Glady. It’s a National Forest “car-camping” spot. It is also free. This should have been all I needed to know. As Beth (“Girl With a Big Pack”), an economist by trade knew, there is no such thing as a free lunch. This economic principle from Milton Friedman posits that anything “free” always contains a hidden cost or externality. For us, the hidden externality was our sleep. Who needs to run a loud electric generator all night in the woods? An RV camper saving money for gas by staying in a free camping spot. Who is awake at 3:00 a.m. noisily and thoughtlessly attending a fire while using a flashlight that periodically shines into sleeping backpacker’s tents? An RV camper next to a loud generator in a free camping spot. Lower Glady is just as miserable as Little Fort Campground is in Massanutten. The next time I backpack in Otter Creek, I’ll hike the 1.5 miles from Myilus trailhead up to a great, quiet campsite on the way to the top of the plateau. Few annoying people hike 750 feet up a mountain with a noisy generator.

Otter was so frustrated by the commotion he stayed up all night writing a macabre version of a trip report in the style of David U (“Baseball”). In it, otters were vicious creatures from Hell who found RVers to be delicious.

The eight of us on this trip had no trouble waking Saturday morning at 6:30 to begin our hike into Otter Creek. Our plan that day was to hike 21 miles through the western to northeastern part of the Wilderness, camping along Otter Creek that night. Haigang (“Two Gangs”) misread the trip posting. I wrote that I hoped to see an otter; he took that to mean he needed to bring an otter. So, he brought with him his tiny long-haired dachshund, Mocha (“Sam”), who looked like an otter. I was skeptical as to whether that tiny dog could manage a rough trail, but that dog could jump over knee-high deadfalls like they weren’t there.

The trail climbed approximately 2,000 feet to the plateau and then continued uphill with a more gentle grade. Here, the rhododendrons introduced themselves, clung to us, and would not let us go for most of the remainder of the trip. This is a trail for people who like pushing through tall, thick bushes.

There were other backpackers on the trail, but not many. We generally had the wilderness to ourselves. We passed three backpackers and I noticed nothing unusual about them. However, Sophie (“Scrapple”) who had been hiking behind a group of us uncharacteristically sprinted to us. Out of breath, she reported that one of the three backpackers we passed brandished an AR-15 assault rifle and all three had open handguns holstered. I noticed a solo backpacker, with whom I had a short small-talk conversation who also had a sidearm. What is with West Virginia and hiking with guns? Just last month on Dolly Sods, we saw a different group of five backpackers with all but one openly packing heat. These could not be for hunting; one does not hunt with a handgun. I suppose one could hunt with an assault rifle, but only if one likes shredded meat over filets. I am either underestimating the danger of otters, or I am underestimating the danger of other hikers.

We moved fast, but not quite as fast as if it was a cleared trail. We stopped for a long lunch in a pine forest.

And then, we really got bogged down.

Our break from the rhododendrons was a bog. Until now I never knew the difference between a bog and a swamp. I now know that a bog is a shallow pond that fills with dead vegetation until it gets covered in spongy moss.

Walking on this bog mostly felt like walking on a memory foam mattress. Girl With the Big Pack had hiked this trail the prior month and warned us to test the ground before weighting each step to avoid getting stuck in the mud. Otter did not heed this advice and at one point sunk in to the mud up to his waist. Everyone else was glad he happened to be in the lead at that point. I helped pull him out of the muck holding him down.

We walked more carefully thereafter.

After leaving the bog, we returned to the rhododendrons. Girl With the Big Backpack had been hoping for rain because she really, really, really likes hiking in rain for some reason. She got her wish. A heavy downpour caused us to scramble to put on wet weather gear—or just get wet as some did. My usual rain strategy is to deploy my “tactical rain deflection device” (similar to an umbrella, but it is “tactical,” so it is cool). However, this time, I opted to use my rain jacket instead because I thought the TRDD’s canopy would get stuck on the thick rhododendrons, making it impractical. Logan (“Man with No Trail Name”) tried using his TRDD and when I later saw him he looked wet. Unfortunately for Girl With the Big Backpack, and happily for everyone else, the rain stopped after a half hour. If it was any consolation for my wet weather loving friend, the rhododendrons’ leaves covered with rainwater simulated rainfall as we pushed through them.

The trail skirted Otter Creek for a while. It alternated between flat to hilly. Some of the hills were “hold onto tree and roots to climb and descend” steep. Otter unintentionally demonstrated his otter skills by sliding down a couple of the muddy slopes along its bank. At camp that night—and this is a real quote—he asked, “can someone take a picture of my backside?,” before going to the creek to clean up. It was covered in mud from his slides.

The rain recommenced by the time we reached camp. Man With No Trail Name, WB, and I arrived to see Veronica sitting alone on a stump at the empty campsite, huddled under a poncho to stay dry. She was hiking ahead before the rest of us decided to take our long lunch, so she arrived at camp first and wanted to make sure she had the right location for the evening before pitching her tent. She was exactly where I advertised. So we all set up tents, made dinner, and hung out around an unlit fire pit in the rain. It sounds horrible, but it was fun in the moment. The weather was warm so getting a little damp was not too uncomfortable. Man with No Trail Name won the culinary award with his homemade version of Thai ramen. He mixed coconut powder, peanut butter, and spices into his noodles. It smelled great. I watched as Two Gangs made and ate a big ramen pack only to make another pack. Sam ate dog food and huddled cutely under Two Gangs’ shirt to stay out of the rain. We discussed whether Sam earned Veteran Member status in DCUL because he hiked over 20 miles on a backpacking trip. Two Gangs did not carry him as he did for sections of the Rescue Mission, Part Deux trip. However, Sam did not carry a backpack—Two Gangs carried supplies for both of them—and he’s a dog. So, I’ll have to ask DCUL’s new returning leader, Jen (“Shuttle”), before promoting him. Veronica said that, in her opinion, Sam otter get MVP status, at least.

It may have been the long hot day of fighting through rhododendrons, and the sudden adrenaline drop from resting, eating, and the sun falling, but Wesal (“WB”) became delirious. When someone pointed out some old metal pieces near the edge of the woods that resembled a beach ball-sized kettle cracked in half, we wondered what it was. Otter offered that maybe it was the spaceship that brought all the otters to Otter Creek. That’s when WB blurted out, “yeah, they came from otter space!” Everyone laughed heartily and she instantly regretted her comment, worried about encouraging me with my juvenile trip theme. She gamely laughs at my “dad jokes” but has never before jumped in with one of her own. It was fun to see this otter side of her.

We discussed our disappointment over not actually seeing a real otter. I later learned a few otter fun facts. How is this for cute: otters sleep holding hands in the water so they don’t drift apart. They mate for life, which explains the absence of divorce lawyers among otters. Our elevation chart for the day resembled two otters lying on their backs holding hands, if one has a good imagination.

At 8:00 p.m., just as it was starting to get dark, I suggested a 5:30 a.m. wake-up call for us to start hiking at 6:30. This way, we could score a 10 before 10 (ten miles before 10:00 a.m.). No one tried to talk me out of it. Our plans solidified, bellies full, and spirits high, everyone left the no-fire-ring for their tents. It would rain steady on and off all night.

I woke at 5:15 ready to yell the wake-up call. At that moment, I regretted the early start. It was pouring rain and I hate packing a tent in a downpour. I considered delaying our start but had no way to communicate this to the others than by shouting. Of course, this would wake everyone anyway. So, I shouted the wake-up call for this trip: “Good morning DCUL! Otters love this weather!” (I would have sung the chorus of rock star singer Blondie’s hit song, “One Way or the Otter,” but the loud rain would have masked the lyrics). It stopped raining a half hour later, before most of us even started taking down our tents.

Sunday was a nice twilight stroll along Otter Creek, its waterfalls swollen to glory from the overnight rain. WB, Man With No Trail Name, and I walked down onto a section of shale slick-rock in the middle of the creek with rushing water all around us and a huge waterfall upstream. Two Gangs carried Sam down for photos.

Pressing onward, we had to cross the creek a couple of times. Rock hopping was not possible with rushing clear water up to the knees. Two Gangs closely monitored Sam as he swam across—naturally, doing the doggy paddle.

From Otter Creek, a steady, well-graded climb took us back up to the plateau. The weather was wet-misty. Not quite a drizzle, but dampening nonetheless. There were fewer rhododendrons to tangle with, but in their place were a number of deadfalls to contort ourselves through. When clothing brushed against the vegetation, the rainwater on it would instantly saturate it. The trail was more challenging to follow. Man With No Trail Name is a particularly savvy navigator and even he had to backtrack when he missed a turn.

I arrived alone at the trail junction with the Myilus trail and the final stretch to our parked cars. This is where I recommend future DCUL backpackers camp on Friday nights to avoid the noisy Lower Glady campground. I stopped to clean and bandage a cut that was bleeding and wait for all the otters. We descended downhill off the plateau mostly all together, with Sam leading the way, tugging on his leash. He recognized this part of the trail from Saturday morning and was eager to get to Two Gang’s car to rest. We hiked with a light jog just to keep up with the little guy.

After cleaning up, we drove to Davis for lunch at Hellbender Burritos before driving home. The burritos were huge, as big as a small otter. A “vegaquarian,” I don’t eat meat so I poked at mine before taking a bite to make sure it was just vegetables wrapped in tortilla. It was not an otter. Many of their burritos carried backpacking names, such as “Lost Hiker,” “Tree Hugger,” and “Faceplant.” Curiously, none was named “the Otter.” I recommended it to the waitress who just stared at me blankly. I wanted her to smile, giggle, and say, “oh, get otter here!” She didn’t. Sigh. Some people just don’t have the humor of WB.

(Note: Logan (“Man With No Trail Name”), James (“Otter”), and Mocha (“Sam”) have not officially accepted these trail names, so I’m using them on a trial basis in this trip report to see if they like them. If not, there is always an otter backpacking trip for them to get one they like).

Featured photo credit: Haigang (“Two Gangs”)

If you go:

Here is our CalTop route.

Here is the Meetup trip posting.

— David O (“Spider-Man”)