Warrior Trail warriors
Frank Pecjak, of Cumberland Township, marks Greene County’s Warrior Trail with a yellow plastic dot during a January hike near Kirby.
Greene County’s Warrior Trail has some beautiful views while following ridge tops from Greensboro, across Greene County to Moundsville, W.Va.
Llew Williams, president of the Warrior Trail Association, stands on the trail next to a shelter that the association built out of old telephone poles in the 1960s.
Greene County’s Warrior Trail has some beautiful views while following ridge tops from Greensboro, across Greene County to Moundsville, W.Va.
From left, Frank Pecjak, Lisa Belding, Llew Williams and Mike Belding – all members of the Warrior Trail Association – marked parts of the trail with plastic yellow dots during a January hike near Kirby.
It’s certainly a path less traveled and in some parts, the only way to know if one is still on Greene County’s Warrior Trail is to follow the yellow painted dots on the trees which mark it.
With spring around the corner, some volunteers and nature-lovers are working to maintain the trail and keep its history alive.
Llew Williams, president of the Warrior Trail Association, has been hiking and maintaining the trail for nearly two decades.
“The county’s constantly changing with the oil and gas drilling and property changes, so we have to move the trail around a bit,” he says.
The 67-mile trail runs from Greensboro, across Greene County and Marshall County, W.Va., to Moundsville, W.Va. It follows ridge tops that separate Dunkard and Whiteley creeks and never once crosses a stream or any water, Williams says.
The trail association was formed in 1966 to preserve the history of the trail. Researchers believe it was an ancient route that Native Americans used to trade for flint, which was used to make sharp tools and was difficult to find in certain areas.
Williams, of Morgantown, W. Va., says that when he signed up to be the president of the association 18 years ago and only six people showed up to their monthly meetings, he didn’t think the association would last. He notes that most of the participants were elderly and getting young people to participate in the trail’s use and upkeep has always been a challenge.
“I thought, ‘this thing isn’t going to last,’ but amazingly, we have,” he says.
In his January newsletter to the 100 members of the association, Williams wrote that “the trail is still unbroken” and that it’s another year to keep “the trail alive and getting out in the woods to enjoy our county.”
The association holds meetings every third Thursday of the month at its headquarters, 1346 Garards Fort Road in Waynesburg. Though there are 100 members, Williams says, “I only see about half a dozen that do trail work and a few more that actually hike it.”
One of those active members is the vice president of the association, Frank Pecjak, of Cumberland Township.
“I hiked the whole thing in 1983 while I was in college,” he says. “It took us a week, and on the second day it rained.”
Pecjak went out in January with Williams and two other members, Mike and Lisa Belding of Whitely, to scout the trail, replace markers and determine what areas will need work this spring.
Lisa Belding, originally from North Carolina, says she got involved in the trail after moving to Greene County. “It was a great way to get to know the county and meet new people with similar interests,” she says.
Every month the association tries to have a guest speaker to present on different things, from programs provided by the local game commission to hiking trails in other countries. They also have a community hike the week of Memorial Day each year to commemorate the Keystone Trails Association’s hiking week.
Mike Belding says he’d like to see more community members or students hiking the trail. “We’d be open to guiding more hikes, whether it’s the Boy Scouts or whoever,” he says.
This year, Williams also would like to plan an archeology field trip with California University of Pennsylvania and West Virginia University students. He says archaeology students from both schools have been working at a place near the trail in Kirby for the past few summers.
“I would like to take a field trip there to take a look around and possibly get a presenter to talk to us about their work,” Williams says. “The association started off as a bunch of archeologists. Those people who founded the trail were interested in its history and the history of the Native Americans who used it, so we’d like to keep that going.”