Don’t Mess With Mother Nature

It was a wonderful spring-like afternoon. The sun was brilliant, skies were as blue as “could be” (old Meads family expression), and a warm breeze was gently moving the stems of the shrubs outside the office window. Wow- spring must be around the corner!

I was working on planning field trips for the caving class. It was February 23, 1977 - before the accident in April at the Sinks of Gandy Creek as told in yesterday’s post.
How was I to know that next twelve hours would teach me a lesson about nature that I have kept with me to this day? Nature is amazing and “she” deserves our complete respect. Sometime we in our technological society forget that we may rely too much on the niceties of our everyday lives.

I was at my desk after lunch trying to get a phone call through to Max Teter who owns the Sinks of Gandy Creek. The cave is located on his farm in the high mountain country of West Virginia. The Teter farm is a wonderful expanse of land with the typical sinkholes that one associates with karst topography. No luck with telephoning.

Into the office came three of my students- Roger Pence, Geof Ward, and Bob McClure. I came up with a great (STUPID) idea. On this beautiful spring-like day, would these lads like to travel to the Teter farm in order to get his permission to enter his land for our caving group, look at the Sinks, and then be back by supper? They all eagerly agreed. I had borrowed my Dad’s new truck that week and one of the other fellows also took his truck.

We arrived in Elkins without incident. Following route 33 through Elkins, we arrived at Alpena. Turning right at Alpena, a small winding road led us to the small hamlet of Glady. I knew that at Glady we could turn off on the left side of the road and a small forest service road should take us up to Middle Mountain. Once at the top of Middle Mountain, another smaller road (car path) would transport us down the mountain through the Laurel Fork Recreational and Wilderness Area and then directly to Max Teter’s farm and the Sinks of Gandy Creek.

Just to make certain that I turned off the correct road in Glady, I pulled up in my Dad’s trusty new truck with the other truck following closely behind to an old fellow sitting on his porch. “Is this the way to the Sinks?” I asked politely. In a short grunt he responded “Yep.” I thanked him and then he said, “You are going up in those trucks?” I told him that we were off to Max Teter’s and was there a problem? He shook his head and went into his house. I though that question was strange at the time. If only I knew how strange!

The weather in Glady was warm with little patches of snow melting on the fields. As we headed up the mountain, the road conditions changed dramatically. What was a gravel road soon turned into a snow packed road. As we crested the mountain, it was obvious a snowplow had been keeping the road cleared since we now had snow banks that were above the doors of the trucks. There was no place to turn around and it was impossible with the snow piled as high as the trucks. We made it to the Middle Mountain road with minimal difficulty.

Middle Mountain road was amazing with a high bank of tightly packed snow on each side. I remember thinking this is how Appalachian bobsled runs must look. I decided that we had to get off the mountain and out of this snow. As planned, we turned onto the Laurel Fork road going down the mountain. Figuring that once off the mountain we would leave the snow behind and we could continue. WRONG! The snowplow had not been on this road for a while and the road had about six inches of wet, slushy snow. Slowly we made our way down the mountain and finally arrived at the Laurel Fork Ranger’s cabin. This is a small cabin used by wildlife researchers. No electricity, water, phone, or other conveniences that we have become used to these days.

Thank heavens we made it off the mountain. At once we saw an unbelievable sight! Just as the road passes the cabin, there was a huge mountain of snow. During the winter, the snowplow had plowed the mountain and dumped the snow on the road. It was impassible!

We got out to access our options. There was no phone in the cabin so I said, “Let’s climb to the top of the ‘hill’ behind the cabin to see if we see a farmhouse.” One of the students found a valentine in my truck and wrote on it the message. The valentine is seen at the beginning of this tale and the message written on the back appears after this post.

Well, walking to the top of the “hill” was no easy chore. At the top the only thing to be seen was more mountains, forests, and plenty of wilderness. As we descended the “hill”, there was talk of such things as folks dying in the wilderness, cannibalism, and other equally gloomy topics.

Our only option was to somehow turn the trucks around and try going back up the mountain. By this time it is dusk and the prospects of a speedy return seemed distant. We got the trucks turned and, using the truck’s headlights, took each truck up the mountain by rocking them back and forth until they moved a foot or so. We inched the trucks somehow up through the slushy snow and finally arrived at the top of the mountain by 9:30 in the evening. By 10 P.M. we were back on the paved road at Glady. A feeling of relief swept over me as I saw asphalt! We got home around midnight.

This adventure made me realize that one must have more respect for the environment and try to be more prepared in the future. The valentine has graced my desk for these past twenty-eight years as a constant reminder.

I always wondered if the ole man on the porch knew what we were heading into that beautiful day.