Join Sara and I for 3 Days of Camp Cooking, Hiking, & Backpacking in the Dolly Sods Wilderness.
For this 3 day, 2 night backpacking trip, Sara, Denali and I decided to do some fall foliage camping in West Virginia’s Dolly Sods Wilderness, part of the larger Monongahela National Forest. Dolly Sods is located in the Allegheny Mountains on the highest plateau east of the Mississippi river and features some of the most varied and scenic terrain available to hikers in the Mid-Atlantic region.
We had our dog with us on this trip, so we decided to give tent camping a go this time around to keep us all together in one spot. I also decided to totally throw lightweight backpacking out the window for this trip, so I brought along my Fjallraven Kajka 75 backpack and stuffed it to the gills with various backpacking gear, just to have a little fun and switch things up a bit (gear list at end of post). This decision was made easier by the fact that we were starting at Bear Rocks trailhead, which is already high up on the plateau with minimal elevation changes.
Campsites and great views are fairly abundant in Dolly Sods, so our general plan was to keep the mileage low and focus on a relaxed hiking pace, fun backpacking food and camp cooking. It was the perfect recipe for a laid back camping trip. Other than the whole leaking sleeping pad situation to make things more interesting…
Route Overview – Dolly Sods Fall Backpacking Loop – Sintax77
No permit is required to camp in the Dolly Sods Wilderness, but there are rules and regulations regarding backcountry camping. You can find more information on the USFS Dolly Sods website here.
Full GPS track data, including campsites, water sources, etc, for this trip and many others can be downloaded on my Trip Data Page.