County Route 18 heads west from 218 just outside of Daybrook in Monongalia County. It’s a typical rural route that winds through the countryside, giving you a nice relaxing drive. After passing a few houses and farms, the road turns to dirt and rock, although rock might be a bit of stretch for Jeepers that rock crawl. We can call them stones. At this point, it looks like you are in someone’s driveway, although both times I have been there it has given me the impression that it is not currently lived in. To the left is a tree farm and/or Forest Stewardship Council managed land.
When the Pavement Ends, the Fun Begins
While the road past this point gets less maintained, it is by no means rough but it’s the type of land I enjoy exploring anyway so I still enjoyed it. As you get close to the top of the ridge, a path splits off — and we obviously wanted to explore the one that looked more overgrown. At this point, we more mostly just driving on grass until we came to a downed tree. Being unsure of whether we were on private or public roads, I wasn’t about to pull out a saw and cut our way through. However, that didn’t stop us from getting out to walk around.
The path continued and we moved up the mountain. At the top is an old house or hunting cabin. We didn’t see any “No Trespassing” signs until we got to the house, so I felt comfortable walking around. If this was private, they didn’t seem to care all that much about people being on the land itself based on the fences and signs we saw on other parts. From the house, the trail continued on, but we decided not to risk trespassing and made our way back to the Jeep.
Ending Sooner Than Expected
After getting turned around (I’m still not used to the length of the Gladiator compared with my previous two-door Wrangler), we got back to the road to continue to see what lay ahead. Unfortunately, we came to a gate around the next bend. Initially, I thought it was just another illicit gate. However, after reviewing the GPS data, I now believe the state route actually runs up beside the house that we saw. I can’t confirm this until I can go back and verify the coordinates, but I’m fairly confident that a different route is the correct path. If so, the trail leading over the ridge bast the building looked to hold a lot of promise, and I hope to get back soon to explore.
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