There’s a ladder bolted into the rocks partway up the Island in the Sky Trail. Not a metaphorical ladder. An actual ladder you climb up through a gap in the boulders to keep going. The dogs got to the bottom of it, looked up at us, and then looked at us again like we’d completely lost our minds. They followed anyway.
This was our May hike, and we’d picked Babcock State Park. We heard about it for years and somehow never have been, which is a little embarrassing considering it’s only about an hour from the house. Beautiful Saturday, dogs in the car, no real plan beyond “go see the place everybody’s been telling us to go see.” It did not disappoint.
If you’ve seen a photo of West Virginia, you’ve probably seen Babcock without realizing it. The Glade Creek Grist Mill sits right off the main road, and it’s supposedly one of the most photographed mills in the country. Here’s the part I didn’t know: the mill itself was only built in 1976. It’s a working replica of Cooper’s Mill, which stood on the grounds until it burned in the 1920s. They built the new one using parts salvaged from three different historic mills around the state. The main structure came from a mill in Pocahontas County dating back to the 1890s, the water wheel from one in Grant County, and the other pieces from a third near Seneca Rocks. So it looks like it’s been there for 150 years, and in a way the parts have been, just not in that spot. The park itself dates back to 1937, when it was developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps, and runs about 4,100 acres.
We started with Island in the Sky. It’s only half a mile, but it earns it. The trail winds up through massive rock formations until you hit that ladder, and at the top there’s a view that makes the scramble worth every step. From there the trail drops you back down through the mountain laurel that was just starting to bloom.
Next we picked up the Wilderness Trail and connected to Triple Creek, which brought us back toward the pool area. Wide paths, a couple of easy creek crossings, and hardly anyone around. The kind of stretch where you stop talking for a while and just walk. After that we headed down to the lake and did the one-mile Lake View Trail loop. That one was busier, with people walking the trail and paddleboats and kayaks out on the water. The path narrows in a few places, but it’s an easy walk with good views the whole way around.
On the way back to the parking lot we stopped by the mill, and we got lucky. A park staff member was running it and walked a small group of us through how everything works. Water flows down through a sluice and turns the wheel. The wheel powers a grindstone weighing around a thousand pounds. Corn drops from the hopper between the stones and comes out as fresh meal. He clearly loved talking about it, which made it even more interesting. We grabbed a bag of fresh-ground cornmeal before heading out. Worth noting if you’re planning a trip: the mill runs daily from Memorial Day through Labor Day, then weekends only until it closes for the season on the last Sunday in October. We caught it on a good day.
Heading home, we took the long way through Rainelle and stopped at the Rainelle Deli & Marketplace. If you don’t know it, Beth Smailes opened it a few years ago because there wasn’t anywhere nearby to get good food, and now they’re making something like a hundred sandwiches a day. Local beef and pork from her farm, raw milk she can barely keep on the shelf, Amish jams and honey, a whole counter full of cheeses and deli meats. We grabbed sandwiches, and they were exactly what you want after a day in the woods. If you’re driving through, go.
Both of us said the same thing in the car on the way home. That was just a really good, laid back day. No agenda, no rush, just a ladder through some rocks and a paper bag full of fresh cornmeal. If you’ve never made it out to Babcock, the mill is only the beginning.
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