Ancient History PMS - Frog Level Discovery - Part 3

Riff Raff's Ride's
Copyright 1997, 2006

Frog Level Discovery - Missed Connections, Missed
Directions and Missing Mammals - Part 3

Wednesday
WOW, what a morning! I should wash clothes more
often. The wake up run into Wytheville (Withvill to
locals) over Big Walker Mt. was excellent. After a
stop to clean my duds I headed out and found nirvana.
Even with fresh gravel patches on over three miles of
it, it was heaven. The prime stretch was thirty-four
miles long and rivals Deal's Gap; not quite as tight,
but three times longer! Not mountain running this
time, most of it paralleled a stream. (Dan, Gary and
Pat, if you want know where it is, join me in the
spring.) The return trip over most of it was hampered
by traffic, so I jumped onto some more obscure back
roads and had another major challenge ride. I
finished the day early at the Virginia Inn in Marion.
It was a good thing to because it started raining just
after I checked in. Walked over to Pioneer restaurant
where I met Steve, another Beemer rider heading for
Fontana. I told him of my plans to take 16 to
Tazewell the next day and he said that it was a better
road than Deal's Gap. Tomorrow morning should be
another good one. Two others bound for Fontana came
in and after dinner we ended up in their motel room,
drinking beer and swapping stories. A very good
evening.

Thursday
I'm running out of vocabulary to describe fun
motorcycle roads. Whether the morning run was the
best road of the trip is debatable, but without a
doubt, it has the best set of directions of all the
travels I've made. "Head north from Hungry Mother
State Park and hang on until you get to the Frog Level
Yacht Club." The road in question is VA 16 as it
climbs and descends three mountain ridges. Over
twenty miles of kinks and sweepers. Not as tight
overall as Deal's Gap, but sections are. I stopped at
the Frog Level Yacht Club, just outside of Tazewell,
and met T. E. (Ed) Bowling, the proprietor and present
perpetrator of the club. Signed his register and
looked at a couple of articles about the place. The
area has been written about in Motorcyclist (Aug or
Sep 97) and Motorcycle Tour & Travel (May 97).
I ran back to Hungry Mother and started north again
before branching off to explore other summit roads
further down the valley. Found two more good state
roads, a map error, a great county road and some
delicious hot dogs during the day.
Headed back to Frog Level and talked some more with
Ed. Frog Level supposedly got its name from a
description of a dense fog one day as reaching all the
way down to frog level. The Yacht Club idea is just
the locals way of taking the piss (that's British
slang for 'messing with your head'). The only
schooners around are in the bar. Ed's place use to be
one of the only gas station/bars in the state. The
pumps were removed about two years ago. There's a
joke about a small town where the welcome signs facing
opposite directions were mounted on the same pole. At
Frog Level, that was the literal truth. I say was,
because at the moment there are no signs, they keep
getting stolen. The local history has it that when
they wanted to form the county, an eastern state
senator was convinced to cast the key vote by a
promise to name the county after him. Thus Tazewell
(pronounced tazwell) county was formed. The county
seat used to be named Jeffersonville, its name changed
to Tazewell sometime after the county was formed, but
Ed didn't know why. North from Marion sits Walker Mt.
then comes Rich Valley, followed by Bushy Mt., Poor
Valley, Clinch Mt. and finally Thompson Valley and the
yacht club.
After five and a half days of the most successful
search for winding roads I've ever had, I left the
yacht club and started back north. New discoveries
continued as I made my way back to the Big Walker
Motel for the night. I went back to the summit of Big
Walker Mt. before heading to the motel and while the
road this time was littered with gravel, I found a
great side road down off the mountain. Of course I
had to check it out both ways so the last bit was back
down route 52 with the gravel. It surprised me how
much of a change can happen over a couple of days. I
don't know if the gravel was a result of the previous
nights rain, but that's the only explanation I can
think of.
263 miles and I estimate that about 150 of it was in
the middle of tight turns. All but twenty miles of
the rest consisted of good valley roads with plenty of
sweepers and short sections of tighter stuff. No
wonder I'm tired. The curved corner connector was
completely crammed and I was collecting cramps. The
best day of the trip!

Friday
Homeward bound. I was allowing two days for
contingencies, but I managed it in one. Having
checked out most of the roads, it was easy to pick an
entertaining route back. I started out valley running
back to New Castle, where I found the better southwest
line to/from the town. Had a late breakfast at
Briz's, where the young girl had a nice pair of denim
shorts on. Took 311 north and an interstate jog to
Covington to put me on 220 north again. That's when I
found the Spring Falls overlook that we had missed
earlier. I stopped at Warm Springs to try out the spa
that Brent had recommended. It costs twelve bucks and
I decided that was too much for a ten minute soak.
(There's no time limit in the springs, but I just
wanted a quick break, not a long layover.) So on to
Monterey and 250 again. Coal trucks were in the way
this time, so I just doubled back and ran it again.
Caught up to them a second time just as they reached a
passing zone, life is good. Seneca Rocks re-appeared
in the afternoon and the day was going well.
I did one last piece of broken pavement riding on a
narrow, nasty 'n' gnarly stretch of WV 72 I've covered
before. The surface sucked, but it was still fun and
the scenery was great. The road wraps around hollers
so deep they have to pipe in the sunshine. Finished
the trip on interstates in the dark with a stop at my
parents house before finally getting home at 10:30.
445 miles for the day, the longest one of the trip,
but still a good one. The total of 2,181 miles is not
any great claim. I've had plenty of longer trips in
less time, but this was one of the best motorcycle
vacations I've ever had. I usually plan to spend the
second week after Labor Day on the road with a
different destination every year. I'll keep to that
schedule, but I have to start adding a Frog Level
spring trip, Friday to Monday, the weekend before the
Memorial Day weekend. Mark your calendars and join
me.

The End

Subsequently, I've managed six Spring Flings directly
to the area and a few other, "just happened to be
passing thru" returns. All have been memorable, and a
few have gotten the full story treatment. This trip is
on my permanent schedule for the third weekend in May
- that's why I didn't make COTU last year ;-)

Cheers,
Greg


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