About the Black Walnut Geotrail
The Black
Walnut Geotrail is designed to introduce geocachers to the
rural serenity of Roane County, West Virginia. There is much to
discover here only a short drive from Charleston or
Parkersburg.
The City of Spencer and the Roane County Chamber of Commerce are
excited that Geocachers 
from across America have visited already and
recognizing the potential for additional geotourism have embraced
Geocaching as a legitimate opportunity to bring people to our area
to discover Roane County.
Each October, thousands gather in Spencer to celebrate the Black
Walnut Festival. The central West Virginia hills are covered with
diverse species of deciduous trees, but the Black Walnut has a
special place in the timber industry and culinary markets. This
festival lasts for 4 days with numerous family friendly activities
spread around the county. It was only fitting that this Geocaching
experience take its name from the Black Walnut which has become
synonymous with this community.
Completing the Geotrail
The Black
Walnut Geotrail will consist of only ten geocaches. Nine
traditional caches and one multi-cache will be placed at sites from
Walton, WV to Reedy, WV. This 25 mile drive through the beautiful
West Virginia hills is just the right length to allow you to not
only find a few peripheral geocaches along your way, but also to
explore and shop. Plan to spend at least a day in the area
completing the trail. If you are from out of the area, there is a
campground at Charles Fork Lake, two Bed and Breakfasts and a small
hotel. There are additional lodging options in nearby Ripley,
Parkersburg, Charleston, Gassaway and Flatwoods.
Caches at each end of the Geotrail will contain brochures
necessary for official participation. Inside each of the ten
geocaches is a stamp and inkpad. You must stamp the brochure in the
appropriately labeled section with the stamp from every cache in
order to be recognized for completion. The caches are all family
friendly, not difficult to find or approach. They are designed to
be accessible by the greatest number of people, but in the interest
of not being readily vandalized they are not all wheelchair
accessible. If difficult terrain or difficult to find geocaches are
your thing, there are plenty of opportunities for these that are
not part of the geotrail within the county as well.
Additionally, official brochures are available by mail. If you
would like a brochure in advance of traveling to
the area you may obtain one by contacting the Roane County
Visitor's Office/Chamber of Commerce. You may also download the
brochures from the official Black
Walnut Geotrail website.
For the first 100 teams to complete the Black Walnut Geotrail, a
special edition trackable geocoin will be awarded. Since quantities
are limited, we ask that no more than one geocoin per team or
household be awarded. Please be courteous regarding this. In order
to receive your prize, take your completed brochure to either the
Roane County Visitor's Center/Chamber of Commerce building on Court
Street behind the courthouse or to the Spencer Antiques Mall on
Main Street across from the courthouse. If both places are closed
upon completing the trail, you may send your completed brochure to
the Chamber of Commerce at the address below. Be sure to include a
shipping address for your geocoin. In addition to the stamps, you
must complete the information portion of the brochure so that we
can quantify the success of this geotrail. There are additional
opportunities to provide feedback on the geotrail's website.
The Kickoff Event
To introduce this new geotrail we are planning an event at the
Washington Park grounds adjacent to US Rt. 119 in Spencer. The
geocaches will not be published until the start of the kickoff
event. Since the new ExploreWV Geocoin Challenge sponsored by the
WV Division of Tourism/Department of Education and The Arts will be
kicking off soon we wanted to establish this trail to give those
working on that challenge an additional opportunity to enrich their
travel even more within the Roane County portion.
The event will begin promptly at 10:00 am on Saturday, September
4. A brief ceremony to introduce the trail will begin the
festivities and then cachers will be given brochures as well as
paper printouts of the cache descriptions. We will try to have a
laptop running GSAK and Cache Register software available so that
you may preload your GPSr (if anyone wishes to volunteer to bring
this please contact me). Volunteers will maintain a presence at
Washington Park throughout the day so that when you finish the
geotrail you may return to claim your prize.
It is very important that you post a "Will Attend" log here if
you think there is any way you will be able to actually attend.
Since the details of this event are still liquid and since the
actual site may change slightly depending on some particular
details, this "Will Attend" log will make it easier for me to send
you announcements.
Acknowledgements and Websites
The funding for the special edition geocoin and stamps came from
the Roane County Chamber of Commerce. The businesses and landowners
who own the property where each cache is located have given their
permission for the cache placements. Containers were donated by
Country Roads and construction of some of the container housings by
TheWatt's.
Roane County Chamber of Commerce
Post Office Box 1
207 Court Street
Spencer, West Virginia 25276
rchamber@commission.state.wv.us
Black
Walnut Geotrail
Roane County Chamber of
Commerce
City of Spencer
Black Walnut
Festival