2009, Marlinton Motor Inn was good, but didn't have a 24 hour front desk.

I have got to go here. All of the bad things sound good to me. Sounds like you just need to bring your coolers with food and beer in case you get there late in the day. Seriously this sounds like my kind of environment.

How far away is Cumberland, MD in hours of drive from Cass/Durbin area? So much to see in this part of the country. Looking at my maps {yes I am old too. I look at maps} I can see where a lot of city people would truly feel anxious cause this is indeed in the sticks. Reminds me of driving into Clay, WV after driving all night and hearing dueling banjos back in early 1970s. A trip across WV as the crow flies is one fond memory. Not a lot of I-roads then and some of the most fantastic scenery I ever saw. Seriously heard dueling banjos until we finally hit VA and wiggled our way to Danville. Great thread for those of who have not made the pilgrimage to Cass.

Regards, John.

Google thinks it's about 3 hours from Cumberland to Cass.

Don't forget there is also the West Virginia Railroad Museum in Elkins which has a nice little indoor display space (featuring various small artifacts and photos) located in what I believe is an old feed store next to the former B&O/WM Elkins depot and yard (with turntable pit discussed in another thread here). It's certainly worth a few minutes of your time if you're in the area. (The Elkins depot is of course still in use and serves the D&GV "Cheat Mountain Salamander" trains that connect Elkins with Cass via the junction at Old Spruce.)

-Philip Marshall

For food in the area, the visitor's center at the radio observatory has a nice grill during working hours.

For something VERY different, there is The Mountain Institute located at about 3,700 ft on Spruce Knob. About a 45 minute drive from Cass, most of which is driving down the mountain. TMI is a summer camp, but there are weeks and weekends where nothing is going on and they are more than happy to host visitors for something like $40 per night.

The "Yurts" are very different. There are also more traditional dorm room options. You need to bring your own food (you can use their kitchen) and bedding. But they do have power and there is wifi near the main Yurt. Very quite, very isolated, extremely pretty, at night the most stars you will see anywhere East of the Mississippi river. Very, ah, hippie, perhaps?

http://mountain.org/where-we-work/appalachian/

There phone number is at the bottom of this sheet. I don't think they have an answering machine.

http://mountain.org/wp-content/uploads/ ... t-Info.pdf

Bob

According to Google maps it is a two hour drive. A lot of driving just to have cell phone and wifi. Now if that is the closest bar.... then I can understand the drive!
Keith

For those who haven't stayed at Cass in a while, many of the company houses now have wifi as a part of the cable TV in them. It works pretty well. There are no phones, really part of the bonus of staying at Cass.

For those worried about food, the Last Run Restaurant at the General Store is open for all meals during the peak season, and for more limited hours during the rest of the year. The food is good. However, we always do simple cooking in the house for many meals. While we can do some pretty fancy meals, we also use the pre-cooked meals that only require boiling water. Most are really good these days.

For those that want fancy and luxury, you need to stay a few hours away from Cass. If the basics are fine, along with a unique feel and experience, then Cass is the place to be.

The restaurant in the Bear Creek Lodge across the river from the Cass Depot is open year-round. Weekdays 8:00am - 8:00pm, Weekends 7:00 - 9:00pm. It's a fairly simple menu -- here's the link.
http://route66snowshoe.com/restaurant/

Watoga State Park, about 25 mile south of Cass, is a great place to stay. They have fully furnished cabins as well as a nice restaurant at the central lodge. I've stayed there four or five times over the past 46 years, and the quality has not wavered. Would you believe in 1970 I rented a cabin for an entire week for $50, and that included mid-week towels and linen changes! It's a bit more pricey today, but still a good deal.

A bonus -- if you have the interest, several of the roads and hiking trails in the park are on old logging railroad grades.

Having lived and worked in both Cass and Elkins between 2002 and 2010, I can say that the cell service around Elkins is fine if you need it. It's nominally better on AT&T than Verizon, but serviceable either way. If you want to stay in one of the motels in Elkins, most of them there are generally well kept (have had good experiences at Holiday Inn Express and Hampton Inn there) and have Wifi, and cell coverage is fairly good all over town through most providers.

In fact, when I last lived there, signal was available (with a few short dead spots) all the way down Rt. 219/250 through Randolph County until about a mile south/southeast of Huttonsville, or 20 or so miles south of Elkins. This cell-service dead zone (for the Radio Observatory) begins about 10 miles north of the county line, or about 40 minutes from Cass.

As for drive time from Elkins, doing the speed limit, and if you're reasonably comfortable with mountain crossings, Hampton Inn to Cass via US 250/WV-92/WV-66 is doable in just a little over an hour (it's the less twisty route); a few minutes more if you take the much-twistier US 219 all the way and cross the (very serpentine) mountain road on WV-66. The other benefit of the 250-92 route is that it has better vegetation control, largely by benefit of more agricultural land on its flatter topography, and is thus a bit more scenic.

Regarding Staunton, having driven back and forth from both Elkins and Cass to Staunton more times than I can count, I can confirm that even if you know and feel comfortable with all the curves, two hours in dry daylight is a minimum. There are others on this board who have made the trip regularly and can weigh in, but you cross nine good-sized ridges in that trip (seven if you take the slightly easier but longer detour at Monterey, VA via Frost, WV). From the very western edge of Staunton, you can make it to Bartow or Durbin in maybe 1.5 hours if you take 250 the whole way, but I'd surmise not very safely at all and surely at risk of attracting the attention of law enforcement. Durbin is maybe 35-40 minutes to Elkins, and Bartow is about 25 minutes to Cass.

And, if you are not used to driving in the mountains, and perhaps if sharp curves make you timid, a good rule of thumb is to plan on an extra 30% of travel time beyond whatever Google Maps tells you. Most of the rural sections of highway in that part of the state were paved on top of wagon roads originally surveyed in the 1820s and 30s, and built using some of the less-expensive forms of earth-moving technology of the day. Even though much improvement has been made to the alignments since the 1940s, such improvement is relative, and you'll definitely follow the topography. Speaking from my own experience as a one-time newbie, and from subsequent experience following behind others and waiting on guests to arrive, a person can get caught off-guard with respect to drive times.

For the gentleman who asked about Cumberland, the Google Maps estimate of about three hours is pretty consistent with what it took me whenever I went on business--maybe even less, as the route via Davis, Mt. Storm, and Keyser is relatively easy.

All of that said, the combination of a wealth of heritage and tourist railroads, some of the most beautiful scenery on the planet, and a great many friendly people make the whole place quite easily worth the trip.

I'll second Watoga State Park, which also has a very nice outdoor swimming pool which was a big hit with my kids when I stayed there years ago. If no need for the pool, Seneca State Forest has camp sites, and is only a couple miles from Cass.

My recall of the swimming pool at Watoga State Park is that on my first visit in 1970, it was teeth-chattering-ly cold, but by 2010, it had become more tolerable thanks to a solar water heating system.

I do tend to have a sports car mentality when making the drive from Staunton to Cass. Driving anything other than a car will indeed add significant time to the trip. It is an interesting ride, I especially like it when the road disappears out the TOP of the windshield. Someday I would like to truck my '58 MGA out to Staunton and then drive the MG to Cass.

I did some research two years ago on renting a unit at one of the many Snowshoe condo facilities. Most are very modern, quite nice, with wifi, pools, and even some spotty cell coverage. Its maybe 20 minutes/half hour to Cass from there. Really need to use google, and do some research, but that’s the option I would look into if I was bringing my wife and planned to stay a few days. The only down side is the occasional F-16 that will fly VERY low over your head, but on the bright side, when you hear it, its already gone.

In the past, while staying at a Cass cabin, I would drive up to Snowshoe to check voice mails and make some calls on my cell. I have AT&T.

J.R. May

The joke I used to make with railroading folks was that I had to keep stopping at the summits of those ridges on US 250 to turn up the retainer valves.

I agree, for the first time driving, plan on 25-30% extra time to stop and gawk at the scenery, or to drive the curves gingerly. Add time if the weather is wet. On the other hand, if you're used to rural mountains and want to see if you can rent a Jag E-Type, Porsche, or Audi Ur-Quattro for the run, you may have a blast......

And if you're coming from the northeast, you can avoid the craziness of Route 250 and all those hills and curves by turning west off I-81 at Winchester, Va. and driving out Route 50 to Romney, WVa., where you pick up Route 28. It goes down through the South Branch Valley through Moorfield and Petersburg, with only a couple of rather tame summits and few steep curves, all the way down to Bartow and Durbin. Much more driver-friendly.

On our trip to Cass, back in 2004, I was pulling my 31' Airstream travel trailer. We were coming from Wisconsin, so we spent some time in Ohio, and then spent the night in Huntington area. Out of Huntington, we left the interstate and followed the Midland Trail, (Hwy 60) over to Hawks Nest, and then down to Hwy 19 to the high bridge. We then headed back to Hwy 60 down through Rainelle and eventually ran into I-64 on Sandstone Mountain grade. That was quite a drive for sure! The section of I-64 had over a dozen run away trucks in the first month it opened. It has 7% downgrade for 6 miles, and it is almost straight so you can build up speed very quickly, and there is no let up in the grade until you hit the bottom. On Midland Trail, we ran into some crazy hills outside of Rainelle also. Once out of White Sulphur Springs, we took 311 out of there over to Roanoke, through Paint Bank. We pulled into Paint Bank and the locals started walking out of their homes and gathered around my rig. Finally one gentleman said to me, "Boy!, Where are you going!?" I offered....."well, this road does go to Roanoke doesn't it?" "Yes sir", was his reply, "You know that bigole mountain you just came over?" "Well, you've got two more bigger ones before you get to Roanoke!"

We eventually made Chapel Hill NC that evening. We spent a week there, and then headed out through western North Carolina, caught I-77 and went north up through Bluefield, and then back on I-64 east again to White Sulphur Springs, and down Sandstone mountain again! Once in White Sulphur Springs, we headed north to Cass on Hwy. 92. Once in Cass, we stayed at Whittaker Campground off of Gum road. I was not thrilled with the campground, so while talking with a gal at the railroad, she said we could park in their parking lot for $10 a night. So we went and moved to their lot. From Cass, we went north up through Elkins and then on into Ohio.

Steve