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2017/04/24

Parking and Dispersed Camping

I took a look at public parking data that I mapped a couple weeks ago.  And even without the right of way data, I have enough confirmed parking places along the American Discovery Trail in Ritchie and Wood Counties in West Virginia to support shorter distance hikers.

I found a waypoint questioning a parking area with tire ruts in it on the on-road portion of the Road Fork Section - Buckeye Trail/ North Country Temporary Connector (BT/ NCTC).  I knew by it's position that it was also the coordinates of the camp shelter.  For the longest time, my data only read it's approximate position.  At one point in time, I thought that I took a waypoint for it???

This shelter is notoriously difficult to find because they don't want it advertised to anybody but hikers.  It has a sign that can only be found in the counterclockwise direction.  Because of the way that Buckeye Trail guides are written, the most hikers are probably traveling clockwise.  There's a notch cut out of the south side of the road with a grassy strip.  The sign is mounted high within the notch in one direction only.

I found a dispersed campsite along this on-road just south of present day Road Fork Section - BT/ NCTC, Point 14.  It's where it's routed through a minor federal property parcel in the Marietta Unit of the Wayne National Forest (The Wayne).  The Marietta Unit's federally owned property is fragmented to such end that the Buckeye/ North Country Trail is the only thing of length that can be routed through.  So, there's stray parcels on it's outer edges.

It has two oil containers.  I'm not sure if they're active.  They probably are.  But it has a grassy field.  If dispersed camping isn't allowed there, it probably is very near by.  As a result, the Road Fork Section is 68% compatible with the BTA's 10 mile campsite initiative.

North Country Trail has two parts, the public (National Park Service) and the private side North Country Trail Association.  "Rated" is a term that is used when NPS accepts a portion of trail.  Portions waiting to be rated or most of North Country's roads are North Country Temporary Connectors (NCTC).  Both sides of North Country are required to follow a corridor as per federal law. But, I think that the NCTC is domain of the volunteer side?  As I understand, that corridor is 12 miles wide, or 6 miles from the center of the trail on both sides.  If they want to exceed it, it will take an act of Congress.  But being the Whipple Section Supervisor and having a North Country concurrency, from my end, that's probably plenty of "wiggle room."

In addition to that, I have the locations of additional parking areas along the Road Fork Section off-road between the Ring Mill and the North Country/ Buckeye Trailhead on OH-260.

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