Simply getting to West Virginia's wildest wilderness area is an adventure in itself.
No roads lead into the newly created Spice Run Wilderness, a 10-square-mile expanse of the Monongahela National Forest straddling the Greenbrier-Pocahontas county line northwest of Neola. Once you find your way to the edge of the wilderness, there are no trails to guide you into its interior.
According to a National Wilderness Preservation System fact sheet, Spice Run "can be accessed by canoe or kayak on the Greenbrier River," or by "crossing the Greenbrier River on foot from the Greenbrier River Trail," a feat recommended only during periods of low flow.
A dirt road approaches the wilderness boundary from the south at Slab Camp Mountain, and a road passable by high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicles passes near the eastern boundary of the wilderness from Calvin Price State Forest - the most remote unit of the state park/state forest system.
The easiest access is available near the southeastern corner of the wilderness, via a dirt road extending northward from the end of the hardtop on Little Creek Road, which forks off Anthony Creek Road a few miles west of its junction with W.Va. 92 near Neola. Once a National Forest boundary sign is passed after driving over several miles of mudholes and ruts, the Spice Run Wilderness begins 150 feet to the west of the road. High-clearance vehicles are recommended for this route.
By hiking a few hundred yards along gated Forest Road 934 to the left of the Little Creek Road extension, easy access is achieved to the headwaters of Spice Run, one of at least two native brook trout streams in the wilderness area. The creek flows across the road, which dead-ends at nearby Spice Fields, a clearing created by the Forest Service years ago to enhance wildlife habitat. In keeping with the wilderness standards, Forest Road 934 eventually will be ripped up and seeded to native grasses and the wildlife clearing no will longer be maintained.
From Spice Fields near the eastern border of wilderness area, it takes about four miles of bushwhacking to reach its western boundary on the Greenbrier River. The absence of trails makes hiking a challenge. While following Spice Run can keep hikers from getting lost, it's a creek that's surrounded by dense brush and pine thickets, and banks that have been rendered marshy by beaver dams. Having to scan the landscape closely for good footing makes travelers more aware of things like late-season mushrooms, intricate ferns and mosses, and animal droppings - including a number of impressive specimens left by bears and coyotes.
The stream Spice Run serves as the boundary line separating Greenbrier and Pocahontas counties from the Greenbrier River to its headwaters. Davy Run, which flows from the wilderness area into the Greenbrier a few miles south of Spice Run, also is a native brook trout stream.
Turkey, grouse, deer and black bear are among game animals inhabiting the wilderness area.
"Spice Run doesn't really have anything more unique than any other area in the forest - but I've seen a bear every time I've been there," said Eric Sandeno, the recreation and wilderness programs manager for the Monongahela National Forest.
"It is our least accessible wilderness area," Sandeno said. "The one road that comes along its eastern edge has been chewed up by trucks and is not in the best condition. It's our only wilderness area without trails, and no trails are planned in Spice Run. Nature and solitude are its predominant features. For this area, it's a new and unique opportunity for recreationists."
According to Monongahela National Forest policy, its wilderness areas are managed to offer visitors "challenge, discovery and self-reliance." Management is geared toward resource protection, rather than visitor convenience, allowing those who travel in wilderness areas to "meet nature on its terms, not modify it to suit your own."
While hunting, fishing, camping, hiking and horseback riding are allowed in wilderness areas, road building, timbering, campground construction and the use of motor vehicles and mountain bikes are not. In Monongahela National Forest wilderness areas, camping groups are limited to no more than 10 individuals, and visitors are urged, among other things, to camp at least 200 feet away from trails and creeks, use only small, fallen limbs in campfires, and pack out, rather burn or bury, all discarded materials.
Spice Run is one of three new wilderness areas, and three wilderness area expansions, created in the Monongahela National Forest through congressional approval in March of the Omnibus Public Lands Act of 2009.
In addition to 6,030-acre Spice Run, the act created the new Big Draft Wilderness abutting Anthony Creek, south of Spice Run, and the Roaring Plains West Wilderness, near Dolly Sods. Thousands of acres of wild lands were added to the existing Dolly Sods, Cranberry and Otter Creek wilderness areas. West Virginia's eight wilderness areas now contain more than 115,000 acres.
This year's Mon Forest wilderness additions were supported by a number of organizations, ranging from the West Virginia Council of Churches and the West Virginia AFL-CIO to the Mountaineer Chapter of Trout Unlimited and the Fayette County Commission. The issue was not unopposed, though, with organizations like the city of Elkins and the Randolph County Commission weighing in against the new additions.
During a visit to Spice Run last week, a number of hunters camped across the road from the wilderness objected to being denied road access to their traditional campsites at Spice Fields and along Spice Ridge.
Spice Fields and Spice Ridge roads lie within the new wilderness area, and have been gated and recently posted with signs stating that they will be permanently closed, treated for erosion and seeded to meet wilderness standards.
"We feel like a camping area has been stolen from us," said Don Shillingburg of Mercer County, a member of the White Oak Hunt Club, whose members have been camping at Spice Fields for a week or so each fall since 1965. "For us, a 44-year tradition involving four generations just went south."
Shillingburg and other members of the hunt club said the wilderness area boundary should have been adjusted a few hundred yards to keep traditional primitive camping areas at Spice Fields and Spice Ridge open to vehicle access. Failing that, alternative camping areas should have been developed for truck-borne campers on adjacent, nonwilderness Forest Service land.
"We barely have enough room to get off the road here," he said, standing outside the club's huge, wood stove-heated wall tent.
"Everyone can still hunt and camp inside the wilderness area," said Sandeno. "You just might need a new mode of travel to get there. It will be a different experience."
