Cacapon Resort State Park Foundation

05/14/2024

This weekend!

Heads up everyone! Our big trail fund raiser is this weekend with around 200 racers bombing thru the woods Friday-Sunday with the timed race Sunday. It's not too late to sign up to race and/or volunteer! Volunteers will be given this year's sweet RED shirt. See links in the comments to sign up. The event will start and finish around the Batt parking lot. Race starts at 8am and raps up with awards around 3:30pm Sunday.

Race stages:
- Upper Thunderstruck
- Lower Thunderstruck
- Giddy-Up
- Ziler North
- Lower Middle Ziler
Climbing routes will be the mtn road and Ziler South.

Shout out to our race sponsors:
Cacapon Resort State Park Foundation
Josh at Element Sports
Alex & Amanda at Trail Depot
Jeff at Iontach Detailing Services LLC
Mark at Frog Valley Artisans

Austin at

And of course thanks to the park for hosting us!

04/20/2024

Stop by to see these amazing adaptive bikes!!

04/07/2024

Things have sure been 'hopping' at Cacapon. Thanks to The Tom & Virginia Seely Foundation, a record-breaking number of children and their families came to visit Cacapon's energized Easter Bunny and participate in the massive egg hunt. It was an AMAZING day with smiles all around! SO many of our local families make a point of telling us that they look forward to this each year-it was such a fun day! We are indeed grateful to the Seely Foundation for their support of children's holiday celebrations at Cacapon-they are memory-makers for sure!

04/07/2024

03/29/2024

A Reminder that the Easter Bunny will be hopping by Cacapon tomorrow beginning at 10:00 AM...followed by the egg hunt at 11:00-and Easter Egg dying at 1:00. Great fun at Cacapon!!

03/12/2024

🌞🏞🐦 A beautiful day in the park!

So many grateful folks for the memorial benches throughout.

03/08/2024

03/07/2024

Foundation member Mark Hoyle was in DC on Capitol Hill this evening where our Cacapon Resort State Park Foundation was awarded the Coalition for Recreational Trails National award for Construction and Design of the Thunderstruck trail using WV/DoH RTP funds!!!

This is an award for ALL of the volunteers who came out and helped build this trail! Without our amazing volunteers, NONE of this would have happened!!! I can never thank this crew enough!!!
This is for IMBA and the amazing partnership in all 3 RTP grants we have earned and IMBA members: COrr, Josh, Uncle Joey, JO, Steve, and Thomas. For the 20+ Appalachian Conservation Corps members, their amazingly positive attitudes and their elbowgrease. This is for the Cacapon Resort State Park Foundation for the support building these trails. This is for the amazing support from Morgan County, WV and the county commissioners. This is for the support from WV OEDC with Danny and Rich. This is for the support from WV DNR and State Parks. This is for the support from Scott Fortney and Kelly Smith, superintendents of the park. This is for the dedication from Eric Fitzpatrick always being out there to build and lead. This is for Zachary David Adams and Appalachain Dirt for getting us started with Rock & Roll and believing in the vision. This is for my family for supporting me spending so much time out at Cacapon and helping lay out and build the trails. This is for everyone I know I forgot!

Thanks to everyone who is part of this dream team making Cacapon State Park a mountain biking destination!

Now for the next step… in the next 3 years, we are building 35 miles of new trail at Cacapon thanks to a $3.5M economic development agency grant!!!
Hang on, this is going to be fun!!!

03/04/2024

UPDATE 3/10/2024:: The WV legislative session ended at midnight last night and SB-688 did not leave the Committee on Gorvernment Organization for a vote by the House of Delegates.

IMPORTANT information impacting WV state Parks-including CACAPON

Senate Bill 688 has been approved by the Senate and has moved to the House Committee on Government Organization. PLEASE make your opinions known to them immediately as time is running out. (links below)

Senate Bill 688: The stated purpose of this bill is to authorize the Directors of the Division of Forestry and DNR to enter into contracts for “management of state-owned forests, natural and scenic areas, wildlife management areas, and other lands for the purposes of preventing forest fires.”

There is NO exclusion for state parks. There was an amendment made to exclude state park and rail-trails but it failed. The language in the bill is vague enough to make one worry a bit about logging contracts on parks under the pretext/guise of removing “biomass” to prevent forest fires. In addition, the bill provides a provision for NO-BID CONTRACTS. Those who have long experience in the park system are concerned because the logging lobby is strong and repeatedly tries to gain access to state lands.

Retired state parks official and forester Bob Beanblossom has shared the following:
“The traditional definition of biomass is any living plant material growing on a given site. In forestry, it is considered to be the removal of any living plant material for the purpose of energy production. Note the keyword living. The removal of a hundreds year old white oak converted to wood pellets would be considered biomass.”

Senate Bill 688: https://www.wvlegislature.gov/Bill_Status/bills_text.cfm?billdoc=sb688%20sub1.htm&yr=2024&sesstype=RS&i=688&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=98a1126a-f78f-48b7-9f85-33ffdd593cc4

House Committee on Government Organization: https://www.wvlegislature.gov/committees/house/HouseCommittee.cfm?Chart=go

Please make your opinions known to members of the committee (link above). Members of the committee leadership and Morgan County representative are listed for you below. Please don't wait-time is running out.

Chris Phillips, Chair [email protected]
Pat McGeehan, Vice-chair [email protected]
Kayla Young, Minority Chair [email protected]
Ric Griffith, Minority Vice-Chair [email protected]
George Miller, Morgan County [email protected]