First Trip to the New Property

On August 2nd, a few days after closing on the property, we loaded the boys and the dog in the mini-van and headed back to the Cacapon. The weather was overcast most of the time, and it sprinkled on us at night as well as a few times during the day, but the air and river were warm.

Home on the River - 1972 Coleman Pop-up

Before we even had the pop-up set up, the boys had changed clothes and were in the river. That was exactly what we hoped would happen. One of the major reasons we wanted a place like this was so that our boys had a place to go where they could just play and be boys and learn how to be comfortable in the woods.

The Boys - Exploring an Overflow Channel

 

 

 

Exploring the Main Overflow Channel

And once we had the camp set up and had a chance to explore the area, we quickly realized how lucky we were. It turns out that our property is the absolute last outpost of civilization. Beyond it is only woods and river. Being there feels as if we have hundreds of acres to ourselves. We didn't really understand this - how private and isolated it would be - when we bought it.

Before we made an offer on the property, I did a fair amount of research on the area. One of the Cacapon River's claim to fame is that it is the cleanest river in West Virginia. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the most obvious one is that the river is still surrounded by forested land without a lot of development. This means that the runoff entering the river is not carrying large amounts of silt and sediments. We expected the river to be clean, but what we found was water that was sparkling, almost crystal clear.

And the fishing... I have never before caught so many fish on the first cast. The first Smallmouth I hooked jumped out of the water three or four times before I landed it, putting on quite a show for my boys.

My First Cacapon Smallmouth

 

Exploring the Islands in the Stream

A little farther upstream we found a nice slow-moving pool. The sunfish were hungry for the little green beetlespin, and my son was able to catch a few of them.

 

Every evening we gathered around the campfire to dry things off and warm up. After cooking marshmallows, the boys poked at the fire as much as they wanted to. 

 

 

 Even after three days with no hot water or flushing toilet, we didn't want to leave. Although the fun was ending, it made the packing up a little easier when we remembered that this place was ours, and we could come back anytime we want! And we did, three weeks later...

We Finally Got our Mountain Property

On July 30th, 2013, we closed on our dream lot on the Cacapon River. The property is in Hampshire county, West Virginia, a couple miles upstream from where route 9 crosses the river. The purpose of this blog is to record our adventures there.

My 12 year old son and I took our 1972 Coleman pop-up camper with us to the closing. As soon as the paper work was finished, we headed to the property to drop the camper off and generally mess around on our new piece of land.

Above is the plat, with our place marked with the hand-drawn asterisk. There is no house there anymore. It survived two floods, with the second flood being somewhere around 1995, but within the same year as the second one there was a third flood. The people we bought the property from explained that there was just too much to repair after two floods in one year so they tore it down.

Much of the property is in the 100 year floodplain. The West Virginia Flood Mapping Tool shows just how much...

The light red shading denotes the area of the 100 year floodplain. Our property has the yellow crosshair marker on it.

I have come to terms with having property in the floodplain. In my estimation, it is no different from having a beach house, knowing that in any given year, a hurricane may come along and ruin things. If you want to have fun and enjoy life to its fullest, you've got to be willing to play give and take with Mother Nature.

So We Finally Get There...

It is quite unnerving to have spent 45 minutes on a piece of land and then buy it a couple of months later, having never seen it since the initial impression. Will it be a perfect as we remembered? When my son and I arrived, it was just as we remembered...except...a huge tree on the riverbank had fallen into the river. As we pulled into the property, all I could see was the underside of leaves, which is typically a bad sign. While the fallen tree disrupted a nice view and made the fishing and swimming a tad more challenging, it was only the first of many of our river surprises.

The video starts with the fallen tree and ends with my poor son mowing the grass. Its okay, I paid him well to mow it. Also in the video is the resting place of the '72 Coleman pop-up camper.

The last video shows him swimming in and crossing the river for the first time. He is brave and awesome. The kid waded out into the river, through the grass and weeds, in his boxer shorts no less, because he wanted to be the first to swim in it (and was hot from mowing the grass). He was wearing my polarized shades and could therefore see a variety of detritus and vegetative matter beneath the surface. Seeing everything in the water caused him to consider returning to the shore, many times. With a little coaxing, he waded and swam across the river. I was very proud of his bravery.

Finally, I want to add a Google maps picture of the property to show how remote it is. We absolutely love that about it. I have drawn the property boundaries in red. If you look closely, you can see that Google has actually captured the tree that has fallen into the river.

There are many more photos and videos to come...