about Babcock State Park
Babcock State Park is located on the eastern portion of the New River Gorge NP. It is known for its iconic Glade Creek Grist Mill. The park is 4, 127 acres in size and offers camping, hiking, birding, fishing, boating and biking. The Glade Creek Grist Mill is fully functioning a replica of a historic grist mill and one of the most photographed mills in the world. You can visit inside the mill on Saturdays and Sundays. Some of the most popular trails include Island-in-the-Sky and Boley Lake. We checked out both on our visit but the Island-in-the-Sky stands out so read our experience below.
Island-in-the-sky trail
This trail is approximately 0.5 miles long and ranked easy to moderate/difficult depending if you look on map from park headquarters or online. Online it does mention steep from grist mill and flat from curve in the road (may have missed this tidbit of information before the hike). The hike can also be around 0.8 miles if out and back. It currently has a 4.2 rating on All Trails.
The Story
How can a trail be rated “easy to strenuous?” It was a question Thomas asked me as we trundled up the slightly overgrown start of the Island in the Sky trail, leaving from the Grist Mill in Babcock State Park. The map said it was less than a mile, and you could leave from one of two trailheads. There was no suggestion that there was any difference in the paths, and being we were already by the Grist Mill, it made sense to just go from there.
So up we went, Thomas with the backpack and me with our six-week old son firmly strapped to my chest in the baby carrier. Fall had just begun, so the trail was covered in a thin veneer of fallen yellow-brown leaves, which made it somewhat more slippery than maybe it is during other times of year. The trail winded up through the mountain, though westerners might describe these Appalachians as glorified hills, it was pretty steep in some places by any standards.
About a quarter mile in, the realization began to sink in that we’d need to come down this way, and it might not be easy. We stared at the paper map we got at the visitor center, which didn’t give any more information than the first time we looked at it. We agreed that surely it couldn’t be that much further, and we leaned in on the “easy” portion of the easy to strenuous description of the map.
The trail, however, just kept going up. Every time it seemed we’d be at the end, the path turned sharply up, into a new, previously unseen direction. It also seemed to somehow keep getting steeper and slipperier. Each turned seemed to require more holding on to various semi-stable rocks and bits of vegetation. We again debated turning around, but to come this far and not see the “Island in the Sky” would have been to make this all for naught.
Finally, we came upon a sort of makeshift ladder, the type you’d see in a tree house in a sitcom, with extremely low clearance. Thomas audibly groaned. I asked what was wrong. Thomas explained there were some stairs but this had to be the end. Thankfully, that was true. We emerged, oddly damp, and came on a sunny path, which led to an overlook that overlooked… some trees. There was no sweeping vista, just a view of the same trees we’d been scrambling through. I scurried around, looking for another viewpoint as there were some small trails that ultimately led in a semi-circle back to the overlook.
The disappointment of the mediocre overlook was outweighed by our knowledge of the impending climb back down the way we came. Only, there was another path. The flattest path you’ll see in your life unless you venture to a salt flat was laid out in front of us. An older couple with trekking poles approached us from that direction. I asked where the trail went. They replied, the parking lot. Adding, rather helpfully, “Don’t go down that way, it’s not good”, pointing at the trail we’d just come up from. We thanked them, walked five minutes, and we’re never more relieved to see a road, which was a simple 5 minute walk, entirely downhill to where our car was parked. Never were we more relieved to walk on a road instead of the trail.
So ultimately we learned how you can have an easy to strenuous trail. You simply take the wrong path and risk life and limb to get to the same place you could get to from a nearly perfectly flat trail. For those wondering, in non-slippery conditions and without an infant, its probably a great trail for the sport of it, but the payoff of the viewpoint definitely fell a bit short.
