One of my local walks

[BlueTrain]

I thought I'd elaborate on my not-so-secret places that I mentioned above. I hope I get to the end before the post disappears.

One thing about places you like to go, secret or not, is that conditions can change over the years. An area where I used to go camping with relatives in the 1950s is a good example. Then, you could just drive in and set up camp and stay for a week. At some point it became a Wildlife Management Area, or in other words, a public hunting and fishing reserve. By 1998 it had become gated in places and the blocked off road had grown up. There was a delineated campground with a permit (free at the campsite). But the last time I was there, last spring, the campground was overgrown. But the river was in flood stage and I don't know what else had changed. I do know that places you went when you were little always seem smaller. That particular area is where some of my ancestors settled over 200 years ago, which was less than 20 miles from where I grew up. We could go down for just a day but it was difficult to get to (rough roads) and not easy to find, though well enough known to local folks like us.

Some of the places where I used to go near the college I attended were old strip mines, really wonderful places for wandering around on. But on my last visit several years ago, they had been fenced off. Presumably that was for safety reasons, since there were open mine shafts there.

Places I've been since then haven't changed at all. My favorite places are in the northern section of George Washington National Forest. No permits needed, no gates and interesting trails. I have made several totally nude hikes without passing anyone one the trails but I was lucky. On one such trip in late spring, I had just returned to my car and five minutes later a school bus pulls into the parking lot full of grade school kids who immediately ran up the trail I had just returned from. The trails are moderately difficult and one round trip going up on one trail and returning by another is nearly ten miles. That's just about right for an easy day trip if the weather isn't too bad. Even though I usually have the place to myself, I'm certain it is very popular on weekends and when the leaves are turning. The only problem is, it's close to 90 miles from home.

[nuduke]

Interesting BT,
Not familiar with strip mines?  What are they? Presumably a place where some ore or coal was mined very near the surface.  Are they old?  Are they large or small in comparison to a quarry or an opencast commercial mine?  I guess small as otherwise they wouldn't be deserted!  But...confusingly you mention mine shafts - were these places where several mining techniques were used?  I'll look it up but I suspect there is no substitute for your first hand encounters with them


Its also interesting about the changing attitudes you describe to public guardianship of some areas.  Why do local authorities erect fences and barriers in places previously unsullied of years or even generations?  I suppose that their assumption of guardianship means they become responsible for public safety so they make it publicly "safe" i.e. inaccessible!  Is it that in these leisured times many more people visit places and so the possibility of someone having an accident is greater? 
Maybe for the campground you describe, it's now overgrown due to inevitable reductions in the budgets for wildlife management and they don't care/manage so much these days.  Overgrown is good - means people aren't trampling it down i.e. not visiting and so you can get your kecks off with greater confidence there won't be encounters.


And lastly, I agree with your remark that 90miles is a long journey for a naked hike.  I just don't really do such mileages purely for the opportunity to be naked.  Whilst naturism and nakedness is now very interwoven in my life, I still have the philosophy that the nakedness isn't an end in itself.  The value and power of nudity is that it enhances being and whatever else you do (apart from a few things e.g. arc welding or working in a deep freeze all day!).  What I seek is to do the normal things of life naked (As usual, I'm naked as I type this 11.30am!) and not let the nakedness interfere with the normal things.  So I wouldn't go 90 miles just for a hike unless I'm on holiday or seeking the particular place to visit, naked or not.  And I don't think I'm alone in this.  JBee and DF and JMF and Stuart & Karla hike in distant places and enjoy that as a pastime.  They would do that (like many others) even if they'd never discovered naturism.  But they are naturists and know that everything is better naked so they hike naked when they can and probably do more hikes because the nudity is reinforcing and life affirming whilst they hike.  For me hiking (or country walking actually) is a bit of a sideline and whilst I want to be naked in nature while I walk, just the walk is an end in itself.  Mind you I've been going about 20 miles to the nearest naturist swim I can find. 


John

[BlueTrain]

Let's see; where to begin.

A strip mine is in fact where coal (or anything) is removed close to the surface. In the places I referred to, it was very hilly and the upper layers of earth and rock were removed with large pieces of equipment like bulldozers and power shovels, then carried away in huge dump trucks. The size of the mines varied. In the West, they are more in the nature of open pit mines. Some have been partially restored, with grass and trees. The mine shafts that were there were drift mines, meaning the shaft goes into the side of the hill more or less level (and more likely sloping down) but there were a few vertical shafts for ventilation purposes. I've only seen one quarry and I think it is on the small side.

"Public guardianship" is an expression unlikely ever to have been used in connection with the Wildlife Management Areas. These places are not ecologically sensitive areas. They're just places set aside for certain uses. I suspect that in the case I mentioned, there was not enough interest in camping to justify maintaining any sort of campground. But since I don't live there now, I don't know any details or controversies that may tell more of the story. There was no management in the European sense or in the way National Parks or National Forests might be managed. Likewise, I wouldn't call the place unsullied either. More like abandoned. It was an area that was settled in the mid-1700s. There's even a Wikipedia page on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crumps_Bottom,_West_Virginia. Like many Wikipedia articles, there are errors, even in such a short article. It says it was also called "Mouth of Indian." It should be "Mouth of Indian Creek," which is really just one point on the river. There has been a road running along the western bank of the river for perhaps 30 miles that dates from before 1800, now partly overgrown and partly covered by dammed up waters of the river. Only part of the WMA was blocked at one time and I don't know why, probably to force people to come in at the other end. The Wildlife Management Area encompasses a lot more than the bottomland.

Indians, now called Native Americans or First Nations, gave the early settlers a lot of trouble until they were defeated in a major battle in Ohio in 1794, which resulted in the Indians being pushed further west (and out of the way). One old book about the New River Valley (which includes Crump's Bottom) said that after that, "the territory was flooded with land speculators."

Although 90 miles or more is a long ways to go for nude hiking, it's easily worth it, there being no real substitute.

[Peter S]

Interesting to see you mention mileage, BT, such American-based folk as I know usually talk about the time it takes to travel somewhere rather than distance. Distance in somewhere as large and widespread as the US seems to have less meaning than in the more crowded areas of Europe and the UK. Though as anyone in somewhere like London will affirm, distance and time taken can seem to have an inverse (and perverse) relationship. Even in my provincial surroundings, it can take as long to get out of town as it does to reach the next one.

[BlueTrain]

I have not always been exactly precise in my statements of mileage because I haven't gone to check on the actual mileages that I have recorded somewhere but more so because the mileage to different places is naturally different. One reason I like G.W. National Forest over Shenandoah National Park, which is nearby, is because the places I go are just inside the forest boundary, whereas the places I go in SNP are another ten or fifteen miles over a winding mountain road. But most of the distance from home is a "straight shot" out on an Interstate Highway, like motorways in the U.K or the Autobahn in Germany. Traffic varies with time of day, day of the week and direction of travel, same as everywhere else.

The eastern part of the United States is not wide open spaces, although there can be great distances. It is about 850 miles from here to Orlando, Florida. It comparison, it is about 350 miles from London to the South of France. From here to Boston is one long city-suburb. You're never really out of town. It's different if you go west, young man.

[Davie]

The eastern part of the United States is not wide open spaces, although there can be great distances. It is about 850 miles from here to Orlando, Florida. It comparison, it is about 350 miles from London to the South of France. From here to Boston is one long city-suburb. You're never really out of town. It's different if you go west, young man.

I'm not sure what type of miles you're using!? From London to the nearest point on the Mediterranean on the south coast its just short of 600 miles as the crow flies and that includes a Channel Crossing. France is a large country, although small by your standards.  I learnt a lesson in South Dakota. I looked at a map and thought "just down the road." A few hours later and a hundred or so miles down the road....

The joy of walking in England and Wales is the huge amount of public footpaths that you are entitled to be on plus many permissive paths. Scotland is different as you can walk anywhere within reason. (Excludes gardens etc) If you look at a border area on the Ordnance Survey maps the public footpaths end at the border. It can actually make route planning more difficult.

Davie 

[BlueTrain]

I have been to London and to Paris but not the South of France. I took the mileage from an on-line calculator. Of course, it depends where in the South of France. When we were overseas to visit my daughter, who was living in Germany at the time, near Trier, we drove to Paris, but not in Paris. On an earlier trip, we drove around the U.K. for a bit. We thought that part of England from Newcastle to Carlisle looked fairly deserted. We were also in the Lake District briefly but we finally found our way out.

In addition to the better known trails, like the Appalachian Trail, there are also numerous more or less local trails that were previously railroad right-of-ways or canal towpaths. Although hardly suitable for nudity, they are easy trails, although you may have to share space with bicyclists.

[John P]

Blue, your postings reminded me of this song, familiar to anyone who goes to folk music concerts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEy6EuZp9IY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_(John_Prine_song)

The Youtube video includes pictures of strip mines (nothing to do with taking one's clothes off, unfortunately).

[BlueTrain]

That first song will tell you more about coal and strip mining than you'd ever want to know, yet there is even more: coal camps.

The coal mining areas were full of little villages called coal camps where the miners lived. The little houses (made of ticky-tack) were owned by the mining companies and the miners were, at one time, paid in company scrip that could only be used at the company store. Many miners were immigrants, too, chiefly Italian in southern West Virginia and southwestern Virginia, and Eastern European in the northern part of West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. That was because they needed more miners than were people already living there. I used to hear radio programs in some Slavic language broadcast out of Pittsburgh when I was in college.

Today, what with both the mechanization of mining and the decline in coal usage, most coal camps have disappeared without a trace, although the names remain on maps. But it's easy to tell where the mining was.

[John P]

Both items are about the same song, Blue! (Not Song Sung Blue, let's not complicate things.)

Now you're making me think of how "Sixteen Tons is a song written by Merle Travis about a coal miner, based on life in coal mines in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky".

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store.

[nuduke]

It comparison, it is about 350 miles from London to the South of France.

Point of order, Mr Speaker - It's 1230 Km Charing Cross (Central London) to Marseille (South of France) i.e about 765 miles.
John

[jbeegoode]

Very popular songs. People identify and apply them to their local heartbreak.

Here, we have strip mines, which also cause water use problems and then the tract house/shopping center/asphalt problems, too. When we incorporated our Town of Tortolita, we set "Paradise" to a different lyric, lamenting the home builders raping our heritage and lifestyles for short term gain. I still sing it and play guitar. It has an effect 20 years later on people. The State Attorney General sued our town to dis-incorporate on the behest of an out of state development company. The adjacent towns, owned by land strippers also sued. The war went on for four or five years, while we survived, then Bush got in about the time that we were arriving at the Supreme Court and we saw that politicians in robes would not uphold the 14th amendment. Town approved by 96% of the electorate...destroyed. Watching in heartbreak as the place that I love is destroyed is one of the bigger reasons that I am leaving.

We often have to travel further to get to where the land isn't tortured. My website stories here like Walker Basin Trail #136, Patagonia Lake, Patagonia, The Santa Rita Mountains: A preliminary investigation, the Valentines Day 2015 or 14, are all now threatened by an impending demolishing by foreign copper mining operations. MAny of the places that we visit have remnants of old smaller mines. It gets grown over, but it is never the same again.
Jbee

[BlueTrain]

There was an honest-to-goodness war in southwest West Virginia on miners striking. Peasant uprisings. Class warfare. It's a wonder things are no worse than they are.

It could be worse; it could be raining. Actually, as it is, it just snowed for about two or three hours and now we have about a half-inch of fluffy white stuff. No naktes Wondern today. Maybe tomorrow.

You were correct about the driving distance. Don't know what I did wrong. I make many mistakes. It says 788.29 miles (to Monte Carlo), driving time 145 hours 19 minutes, which is suspiciously precise.

[jbeegoode]

So, Nuduke, about this 90 mile travel distance and the attitude of nudity being a secondary importance.

If I want to get to the good stuff, I often have to go further. We seldom travel 90 for a day hike, but we have. If we travel 90 we often take a tent and overnight near these places, or at them. That's how we get into these really cool spots and away from the bother of people. It is worth it. It is a minny vacation, a get away. Although a local walk, even in the Tortolitas, is great, it seldom compares with a true nude get away. They are two different animals. If you are only doing local hikes and spots, you are missing the better part of the potential and much of the understanding of free range nudity.

The reason we do it is that it is sooo wonderful.

Doing a nude hike just to get naked doesn't make so much sense to me. Naked hiking is amazingly better than otherwise, I couldn't see myself going to much trouble to get out clothed anymore, maybe an extremely exotic place. They go together. It can't be about just getting naked alone. So, I may sound like I am repeating what you wrote, but getting out with the enhancement of naked is worth the extra effort. Standing on top of a Munroe or a sky island clothed is mundane compared with the senses associated by doing it and standing there naked...and it does a body good.

Exploring new places is an important piece of the need to effort to travel further.

We do photography, I've been enjoying learning to write and turning others on to what we do. If we didn't have a nude component, then where would that go? We would be just another pair of naturalist. That's worth the effort to go the extra distance.

Ninety miles won't even get us to Phoenix. Sometimes we travel and then get off into 4x4 territory for distances where we are truly free for miles for hours and nudity enhances all of that. It is an amazing world nude, and nude in nature, we get to experience it fully and it stimulates us to do more. To go "someplace" just to be naked sounds pitiful to me. A repressed soul getting a smattering taste of what he is due. Like "Solent Green" a jar of strawberries. Or "1984" naked in the woods at great risk and ultimate destruction a very sad limited life with one enlightening blurp...wrong, wrong, sad, scary, wrong.
Jbee

[Peter S]

145 hours to drive 788 miles? I had a car like that once ...