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Pittsburgh, PA & Monongahela Forest, WV
May, 2026

3 Days of Backcountry Camping on Middle Fork Trail in the Cranberry Wilderness

May 21-23

We packed our packs and trudged through the sloppy wet forest in high spirits, dripping wet. It was so damn beautiful. We didn’t mind the rain. We were even singing to alert the bears haha!

We found the place we want to camp for the next 3 days! And the rain had even let up for an hour or so so we could set up our tent and tarp.

Evidence of a bear scratching the tree for sap:

We were nervous about not having a water source nearby, but I heard the trickling of a creek behind the camp. Not much, but enough to gather and filter! A nice surprise.

Aaron got me this awesome tri-pod for Christmas. Its legs can be molded around anything!

Turd shaped moss on a log:

Hanging the poncho and rain pants to dry. Terrified me every time it caught the corner of my eye:

The fun game of tying a rock or stick to a rope, throwing the rope over the branch, tying a bear bag full of food to the other end, and hoisting it up and away from bears:

For some reason I kept unintentionally practicing the art of Komorebi Photography - taking picture of the treetops from below.

It started to rain again, so we started dinner.

Even though it was early, all of a sudden it turned black as night. I took this pic minutes before we received a TORRENTIAL downpour that lasted all night. I should have seen it coming when my camera auto flashed in the afternoon. The tarp started to sag so I had to push out a gallon of water - I shit you not - every 5 minutes WHILE eating my dumb dehydrated food packet dinner. Worst dinner EVER.

Time for rain gear.

The bear bag getting heavier and heavier with water…

We made the best of the miserable non-stop rain doing some silly shots for my next series…

After a night of heavy rain, the river swelled to 3 times its size! AMAZING to wake up to it!

The next day it continued to rain and we walked further up on the VERY wet trail, sopping wet ourselves. It was beautiful and so still. Lots of birds.

Always prepared for bears:

The next campsite about a mile from us down a sheer cliff. I have no idea how people get all the way down there. Or back up!

One of the most charming things about the Monongahela Forest is its delicious fog. Appears and disappears in seconds:

Teeny tiny mushrooms (foot for scale:)

Translucent mushrooms:

I was able to make a fire that night, barely. The tinder wasn’t soaked all the way through, but it was getting there. This one didn’t last long. The rain continued. It was cold too! We saw a father and daughter on the trail with backpacks and I ran up to them to ask about the weather. They were fresh-faced and ready to do a 2-day trip. We saw them the next day like they had been in a war. It was FREEZING that night, and the river they were planning to cross was so high they would never have been able to cross. Felt bad for them, but I can understand. It’s HARD to camp in the cold rain, especially when you see a river swell right before your eyes. It’s scary!

Two days under this tarp. Gets old :(

But Aaron’s leg was still hurt, so we’re glad we had a dry place to hang.

Magic hour in the woods…

All bag-of-urine jokes aside… This is how much tannin is in these rivers! We weren’t sure if water that dark would be safe to filter and drink, so we waited and used the water we brought in. We found out the answer when we got out of the woods: Yes, it can be filtered and drunk. Better safe than sorry, and now we know!

Nighttime in the woods is really scary to me. When I’m in my tent I’m OK, but walking around flashing a camera… shudder. There is something un-seeable that just penetrates your skin. As soon as everything is black, your mind starts to hear things. YIKES.

We were soooo weary of the cold and rain and constant dampness of everything at this point. But it made us stronger. It was like a weird opposite-experience of our time on the 90+ degree sandbar for 3 days in Idaho a few summers ago. Both very difficult to get through, but in hindsight… very satisfying. At times even magical - I had an INCREDIBLE long, detailed dream that Thomas came to visit me. It was so real! You can have such powerful dreams when you’re in the darkness and silence, sleeping 12 hours a night.

Couldn’t start a fire for the life of us on the last night. Everything was soaked through, even the stuff we had under the tarp :( Even with fire starter.

Dirty hands from trying to dry birch bark by rubbing it between his palms.

That was the end of our 3-day rainy stay in the woods.

Now on to Elkins, West Virginia for a VERY needed shower and dry hotel! >