Emily and Andy Gibson (partially hidden) take a rest on a pile of breakdown. Photo by Sunny Given

Bacon strips hang from the ceiling. Note the bat in the upper left corner. Photo by Sunny Given

Popcorn and helectite formations in a grotto-like area in Poor Farm Cave. Photo by Sunny Given

It's kinda dark in here. Photo by Sunny Given

The beehive, a huge example of flowstone. Photo by Sunny Given

Emily Gibson shines her light on the column. Photo by Sunny Given

Cave facts:
     From The Geological and Economic Survey: Caverns of West Virginia

• Cavern features: "Practically all cave passages are floored with fills of clay, silt, or gravel. In thickness, the fills vary from a few inches to many feet. In Poor Farm Cave over 75 feet of fill is exposed in a vertical section where an old stream cut a canyon-like channel through it."
• Mineralogy: "The number of mineral found in caves is relatively limited. Calcite is the most common mineral and occurs in a number of forms." Gypsum, saltpeter and chert are also found in varying amounts, depending on cave location. "Chert is found in many caverns...unique forms, or possibly new species of minerals, are found in many caves. In Poor Farm Cave an interesting form is developing in and adjacent to small pockets in the ceiling. It is a layer of brown, opaque, fine-grained noncrystalline material that has a high polish on the surface. This has been identified as francolite."
• Once you get past the entrance and fairly into any cave, you'll notice the consistent temperature of between 50 and 54 degrees, no matter what the weather's doing outside. Humidity is pretty much a constant 100%."
• Some caves have strong air currents that move through them. In summer months, you can feel the effect by standing outside the mouth of the cave.
• There are four commercial caves open to the public in West Virginia. Smokehole and Seneca Caverns in Pendleton County, Lost World and Organ Cave in Greenbrier County.
• Caves were a source of saltpeter for gunpowder for the Confederate forces during the War of Northern Aggression. 22 caves in West Virginia were mined for saltpeter, and four others were mined by locals as far back as the War of 1812. Relics of the mining effort remain in many caves, including hoppers, bridges, troughs, tools and bridges.
• Critters you might run across - or might run across you - include millipedes, cave crickets, beetles, mice, spiders and bats. Salamanders are abundant in some county caves.

The grass is blue and they serve barbecue

Allegheny Outback sings for their dinner. Photo by Heidi Zemach

by Heidi Zemach
Contributing Writer
      As members of a bluegrass band,with white shirts, black pants and cowboy hats and silver bolos, practice their tunes behind the Cass Scenic Railroad depot, in preparation for the evening's entertainment, seventeen flashy motorcycles descend upon the train station with a thunderous roar.
      Down from the Freedom Fest 2003 rally at Snowshoe Mountain Resort, the bikers trade in their chrome touring- roadsters with leather seat cushions for hard wooden benches, steel rails and an outdoor ride of an altogether different kind.
      Visitors to Cass travel on the same type of powerful, geared steam locomotives once used to haul logs from the hillside to the formerly busy mill town in Cass in the early 1900s through 1960. The passenger cars are old logging flatcars refurbished and made into open-air passenger cars. Riders sit on long wooden benches, or stand and walk around, looking out at the forests and mountain pastures.
      As the locomotive pulls into the depot, chugging and huffing, its bell clanging, crewmember Steve Halterman hangs out of the door of the engine cab, making sure that people are off the tracks. Halterman's main duty, however, is to keep shoveling more coal into the firebox and watering the boiler so that the engine has enough steam to haul the locomotive up the mountain. Four to five shovels every 20 seconds is generally what it takes, he says. On an 80-degree day, the engine room can reach 130-140 degrees, Halterman admits. He still finds the job fun and "real interesting." For instance, Halterman is also the bell and whistle guy. These sounds aren't simply to impress tourists, they serve an important purpose, he explains.
      "When you come to a crossing, you blow two long, (whistles) and then a short and a long," he says. "Backing up, you do three shorts. When it's getting ready to pull ahead, one short."
      Ridership on the popular, dinner-train ride from Cass to Whittaker Station on the famous Shay locomotive has reached healthy levels, after a month-long lull due to nonstop rain in June, which kept an estimated 2,000 riders away, according to the ticket agents.
      "This summer we started out wet and a little bit slow, but the weather improved and people returned. Things are going pretty well right now," said Dave Caplinger, the superintendent for Cass Scenic Railroad State Park, working late in his office-an old green train-car. The dinner train rides are a joint effort between the food and entertainment concessionaire, Snowshoe Resort, and the WV state park system, Caplinger explains.
      When 5:30 p.m. arrives, with all passengers aboard, the great pistons start pulsing, driven by hundreds of pounds of steam pressure. The shaft begins turning, the wheels find traction and the locomotive begins to move away from the station, thick, black smoke belching from its stack. As if on cue, a small boy, walking with his grandpa on a grassy lawn, runs after the train and waves to the passengers.
      As the steam pressure builds, along with the passengers' excitement, the train drives now at full steam as the journey up the mountainside begins.
      The train soon passes the remains of the sawmill, no longer in use, a dripping wooden water tower, then rounds the curve up Leatherbark Creek towards the Cass Shop where trains still are serviced and repaired.

Passengers look and point as the dinner train passes the engine shop. Photo by Heidi Zemach

      The Shay locomotive continues along uphill, slowly enough for passengers to take in the scenic details, such as mushrooms imbedded in the roots of trees, varieties of purple or yellow wildflowers that bloom along the tracks, and a deer, hiding among the tree-stands. There's also plenty of time to appreciate the way the late-afternoon sun rays reflect through the shadowy trees.
      Meanwhile, what makes the ride exciting for train fanciers and young children is the loud huff of the stack belching black smoke, the clanking of gears and pistons, clack-clack of rails and scream of the whistle at crossings.
      Tom Grassinger, of Maryland, one such train and history buff, comments on all the trees and wood he's seeing, and all the men that it took to build the railroad.
      "Back when they made this railroad they did all this with the pick and axe, no machines," he tells his son. "Just plenty of workers, and the boss that owned the company."
      The mill operation was enormous during its heyday from 1902 through the 20s. It ran two 11-hour shifts, six days per week, cutting 125,000 board feet of lumber each shift, for an impressive 1.5 million feet of lumber per week, a disembodied voice informs passengers over a loudspeaker.
      Grassinger rides steam trains every chance he gets. But although he's been on steam trains in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Tennessee, the Cass locomotive is unique in its ability to pull itself uphill.
      "Regular locomotives can pull a three-percent grade but a gear locomotive (like the ones at Cass) can pull a six or seven-percent grade," he said. "It's a lot slower, but more powerful."

Cass Train crewman Ed Keenan leaves the train to change its direction at a switchback. Photo by Heidi Zemach

      Passengers watch with interest as a crewman jumps off the train and turns a bright red metal key alongside the tracks at the first of two switchbacks. They soon realize they're now moving uphill in the opposite direction, as the train reverses to climb another steep grade.
      The switchback process allows the train to gain altitude quickly, and in one instance, allows the train to traverse a grade of up to 11 percent, or 11 feet in altitude for each 100 feet of track, the voice informs. A two percent grade on conventional railroads is considered steep!
      Riding along in the carriage is Larry Glen Cochran, the lead singer and rhythm guitar player from the entertainment-a bluegrass group from Webster County, about 80 miles from Cass.
      "We're just a bunch of ole boys from Webster County that play bluegrass music," Cochran said.
      "We do the traditional bluegrass just as it ought to be done," he said. The tunes most popular among train riders include "Country Roads," "Fox on the Run," and "Rocky Top," Cochran said.
      After another switchback and more noisy, but scenic climbing, the train arrives in the open fields of Whittaker Station, where picnic tables and a dinner buffet of baked chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, macaroni salad, dessert, and drinks await the travelers.
      Jack Griffen, his wife Virginia and their daughter Anne are riding the Cass train for the second time, and enjoying the dinner/entertainment twist. "Very good. Very scenic," Griffen said, as he waited patiently in line. "It's different and disappearing. We won't have it forever."
      Members of a motorcycle touring group from Pittsburgh, PA, said they expected to dine in a restaurant aboard a closed train, rather than buffet-style dinner at picnic tables in a mountain field. Nonetheless, they were clearly having a blast discovering and experiencing all that Pocahontas County has to offer.

Anne Griffen, of Portsmouth, VA, dances to the bluegrass band Allegheny Outback at Whittaker station. Photo by Heidi Zemach

      As passsengers dine, wander to the nearby display of logging equipment, or make daisy chain headdresses, Allegheny Outback plays as Cochran enthusiastically belts out another tune. Meanwhile Anne Griffen, enjoying herself, moves to the music in quite her own style.
      While "Country Roads" indeed catches the audience's attention and causes them to start singing along, on this evening, "Man of Constant Sorrow," popularized by the movie " O, Brother Where Art Thou," clearly steals the show.
      As dusk darkens the skies, the return trip is characterized by rowdy cyclists, already looking forward to their trip back to Snowshoe. Their din is drowned out by the constant screech of breaks as the crew expertly brings the train back down the mountain. The front-end car also brings passengers head to head with the massive black Shay engine. Riders so inclined can walk right up to it, lean forward and actually feel the heat of the engine. Occasionally holding their ears to protect them from the loud blasts of the locomotives' whistle, they can experience the black steam and smoke, and occasionally catch a spray of hot water.
 

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Adventures in Good Eating

The Raven's Club-house offers great sandwich lunches, dinners

The Raven Clubhouse sits cradled in the embrace of the mountain. Besides the restaurant, the clubhouse also has a pro shop and ample space to store its armada of golf carts. Photo courtesy Snowshoe Mountain Resort

Pamela Pritt
Managing Editor
      Its not for golfers only.
      Oh, sure, if you want to golf you can, but if you want to stop by the clubhouse for some delectable sandwiches, salads, appetizers and full meals, it's a sure bet you'll be full of food and delighted with the view of what is arguably the east's most beautiful golf course.
      The Raven Clubhouse caters to the hungry. It's a tough decision to choose between the sandwiches, but as it nearly always does, the Reuben, or in this case, Reuben's Brother, did it for me. The corned beef was lean and juicy and the sauerkraut, a perfect sweet and sour combination. Topped with Swiss cheese and whole grain mustard on marble rye, it could not have been a better lunch.
      However, my friend, Gail Price took on the Basil Walnut Chicken Salad, also on marble rye. She said it was scrumptious, with Mandarin oranges and celery to add to the sweet flavor and give it some crunch. The basil was palatable and the Mandarin oranges gave the chicken salad bursts of juicy sweetness, she said.
      Both sandwiches were served with chips and a pickle, or your choice of French fries, potato salad, coleslaw or fruit.

A happy foursome await their meal by the floor to ceiling windows. Diners can also enjoy their meals on a glassed-in porch. . Photo by Pamela Pritt

      We had a hard time deciding, though, with so many appealing choices on the menu.
      While we both gave consideration to the crabmeat melt-Maryland crabmeat served on a toasted croissant with melted mozzarella and Parmesan cheese- and the Grilled Chicken Salad-mixed greens and fried chicken tossed in a honey lemon vinaigrette and laced with roasted pine nut dressing-we were tickled with the choices we made and vowed to return to try the other options.
      Gail and I didn't try the appetizers, but certainly the chicken or steak quesadilla sounded great, as did the Nacho Grande with its multi-colored chips, melted cheddar and jack cheeses, jalapenos, salsa, sour cream and guacamole.
      There's also a Steak Hoagie and Barbecue worth a look, and from events at the golf course, I know from experience their burgers are top of the line. A variety of salads include a Chef with country ham, Cobb Salad with bacon and bleu cheese crumbles topped with avocado, tomatoes, grated cheese and hard-boiled eggs

A cozy corner fireplace stands ready for cooler days. Photo by Pamela Pritt

      Cold sandwiches are served on your choice of onion-dill bread, sourdough, multi-grain or marble rye.
      If you are an early riser, you may enjoy the Raven's breakfast with stuffed French toast-stuffed with strawberry preserves and cream cheese, that is. Or try the Double Eagle-two eggs, hash browns and your choice of ham, bacon or sausage and toast. How about the Top of the Morning Biscuits and Gravy or create your own three-egg omelet with onions, tomatoes, ham, mushroom, bell peppers, bacon, cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese.
      The health-conscious can start with fruit and yogurt, a freshly baked muffin or a bagel and cream cheese.

Quench your thirst at the Raven's fully stocked bar. Photo by Pamela Pritt

      Desserts are by the day and none was available the day Gail and I were there, which was okay, because we were full anyway.
      We sat on the glassed-in porch at the Raven with plenty of mountains and well-manicured golf course for our view. Both of us had escaped a busy day to do lunch, so the get-away was a relaxing time with great food and a great view.
      Pritt is a life-long resident of Pocahontas County. While not a connoisseur, she certainly enjoys dining out more than cooking at home, as her family will attest. An adventurous diner, she's tried escargot and calamari, which she said she wouldn't knowingly do again.

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