Deep Woods Camping & Finding a Cessna 414

there was a hiker that disappeared out here and uh was never found some even speculate that he might have been looking for the same plane that we are which is doubly creepy [Music] 1.8 hey everybody syntax77 here it is mid-march and i am back in west virginia i'm in the cranberry wilderness at the big beachy trailhead a little bit of snow on the ground but nothing that uh jeep couldn't handle i got frank with me frank is back we're gonna head into the woods just a two day trip one night and um to spice things up we're we're doing a little search for a plane crash on this trip which i've done before in other videos but this particular one is probably the most i'd say off the beaten path and least visited for sure of the plane crashes the other ones i've went to are pretty well known and could find a lot of information online about them but this one not so much so we're going to take this a little bit of a road hike here and then we're going to hit the trailhead we're going to go in about four miles minimal elevation gain so it shouldn't be too bad so we got the giant packs we got some hammocks some good food and when we get about four miles in they're uh well we're going to start bushwhacking i got some gps coordinates and we'll get into all that as we go but right now the weather is in the 40s it's great it might dip into the 20s tonight or maybe i'd say low 30s but uh it's relatively warm a little flowing water but unfortunately once again i always do this to frank well i always pick trips where there's no reliable water so we're packing all our water in got a gallon a piece and uh got everything we need that's nice in here though a little pine tree vibe always like cranberry wilderness oh looks like we got a trailhead board right up ahead here let's check that out and they actually still have this notice up and i remember this my first trip to cranberry wilderness in like uh 2014 or so there was a hiker that disappeared out here and uh was never found he was about 60 years old retired sf army colonel survival experience went on a solo hike never came back and he left from the same trail that we're about to do so that just adds to the creepiness a little bit some even speculate that he might have been looking for the same plane that we are which is doubly creepy um the play we're looking for is a cessna 414 it crashed in 1995. um it was just the pilot on board he was returning he dropped off a passenger and he was leaving from braxton county regional airport towards lynchburg virginia and unfortunately it was foggy conditions and i hit the top of this mountain that we're on here and it took 11 years to find a plane somebody finally spotted it from the air and um hiked in like we did they spent the night and they found it but they never found the pilot so both of those guys are out there somewhere i guess but anyway on a more positive note welcome to the cranberry wilderness and the signs still up just in case like you find like a random tent in the woods like let them know i mean if you really did disappear out here hiking it's so dense if he left the trail he could have a tent that was set up i mean it would be destroyed by now but he could have had a tent set up a hundred feet off the trail and you wouldn't have seen him and there's hundreds of miles of trails out here shouldn't be helping puffins already now we're off to a good start we're out of breath after two feet joined the gym for no reason and we almost missed the trail no trail marker at all looked like it went straight but it actually checked my gps and we're supposed to go right and this is big beachy trail not super maintained apparently let's go around this this pack is too big for that sloppy okay now it is a wilderness area so that's gonna mean there's less maintenance less trail markers if at all no trail markers really um yeah just better know where you're going almost all the places i hike usually comfortable like if the group splits up or something like hey yeah you you go ahead i'll catch up i wouldn't do that around here not in cranberry there's a lot of uh there's a decent amount of intersecting trails that are just not marked and you could easily take the wrong one and it is quiet out here and mossy and voices carry pretty good though and if you're wondering why frank is in the distance we had our first casualty a water bottle he's got this budget backpack which for 30 bucks or whatever i do recommend if you don't know if you're going to be in the backpacking but one of its downfalls is these tiny shallow pockets and his nalgene must have popped off we're only like a quarter mile in and uh luckily we just stopped because i wanted to take this fleece off from heating up and he noticed it wasn't there so he's backtracking which is ironic because i just talked about not separating can you hear me all right cool i was just saying it's kind of ironic i just said we shouldn't separate it's all right we got auditory contact well let's hope he gets this water because we need it that's for sure he's been gone a while not too long i guess it just feels like a while just standing out here in silence should have went with them but irrationally i just pictured some bear coming along and ripping apart our packs while we're off looking for a liter of water and coming back to i don't know probably very improbable but yeah we're off to a creepy start great he must have went far so might as well go meet him you you hear me hmm thought i heard him whoa you got it where was it way back there on the road wait you went all the way back okay i'll take your time you'll kill yourself i thought i was going crazy if i didn't drop it that'd be such a waste yeah oh my god all right well i was looking at it looks like you can use one of those straps to put through this and buckle it and it'll save us in the future lesson learned listen learn eventually yeah all right let's get back on it we're into some snow mud and snow kind of cool with the bright green and the white though we're back at it in and out of the snow so we'll see um when we do this bushwhack the bushwack when we leave the trail is going to be about 0.2 to 0.3 let's call it a quarter mile doesn't sound like much but i mean take a look outside of this trail right here so it really depends how dense it is and just about everything's dense around here um when we get there so hopefully it's an area that gets some sun and doesn't have snow added into the bush back but we'll see as i get a stick up my rear end there we go obstacle course so we're on big beachy trail now and um eventually we're gonna hook up with the district line trail and that is the closest trail to the plane crash and i got the coordinates from the actual ntsb official report that had gps coordinates not of the plane itself but the initial impact and then they gave some notes on kind of the path debris path and whatnot big bt that's us continues that way it is crazy quiet it's yeah it is you're really quiet it has been the whole time there were birds in the beginning but they are gone now so a little snack and that's us district line trail you know this will be our last real trail i guess for a mile or so and then you know ideally i'll leave the trail so we can hit the gps coordinates i was talking about but honestly it's so dense around here but it varies like sometimes it's like open like it is over there so we may pick where we go into the woods just based on where it looks the most accessible you know what i mean so i don't know we'll see but we're gonna press ahead on the district line and the snow kind of comes and goes sometimes it's boot deep sometimes it's not here at all yeah some coyotes got yeah we've seen a decent amount of that district line trail a little less obvious to follow but there has been some pink tank tape hanging up and occasional blue markers that look like they're from 1962. let's see here half mile from the actual plane if we left the trail from here but if we keep going we can shorten that to a quarter mile work the trail kind of right here it does a dip see like that curve so the actual trail will get us a lot closer if we probably enter around there cool me and if we can find a real campsite along the trail in there we could drop our packs make things a lot easier on ourselves the trail itself is getting pretty dense lots of pine needles down the back of our shirt collars in the last half hour but we're getting there so it's about 12 30. weather's been nice because there's no snow in this particular area i hope it stays that way we're back to that mossy vibe from the beginning of the trip we should find a home soon hopefully oh see jesus yeah i think we found about as open as it's going to get around here shoulders are straight at this point we're about a quarter mile from the crash site we can start bushwhacking from anywhere really in this general area so we're going to drop our packs kind of claim this and then we'll go packless maybe i'll i'll take my little fanny pack looking thing off of this and we'll go in there light so it'll be easier because i think it's going to be pretty dense oh man yeah that's serious i like that the sun is blazing down on this still feels good this is the spot [Music] all right we're doing it yep district line trail making a home start with our uh modeling remodel yeah nice and it's uh 12 43 it's not even our one o'clock target yet wow nice i think this is it this is it now it says point 17 miles go for it all right straight ahead i guess well and we'll just keep periodically checking the gps to make sure we're on point i have my phone as backup gps and obviously we have the campsite we just left tagged and we're at around 4 200 feet right now plane impacted around 4 000 feet um so we're going downhill maybe two 300 feet max and then of course we'll be going uphill to get out we'll see if it gets more dense as we go obviously we're gonna have to navigate around as we go just have to keep in mind to alternate how i go around stuff if you keep going around stuff to the right guess what you go in a circle i forget what it is i was reading a survival thing one time and it said that humans in general tend to if they're faced with going around an obstacle right they got it right so most people who are lost end up going in circles right now we're going to the right so the next obstacle will go to the left yeah it's it's not too dense in here right now like this no like it may change but this ain't bad it looks like where we have to go is a little bit worse but yeah it is uh i know we didn't bring jackets or anything because we were like ah it feels great but now that we're in the pines it dropped a good 10 degrees so much better without a pack on though the check to see how far off we are we're heading towards it in general we need to go a little a little right yeah that's better some snow over there all right so this says we're on top of it like real close but you got to keep in mind this gps point i created myself based on the fact that it's 500 feet from where we know that it initially hit so if we don't see it around here we're just going to go towards where the initial hit was look for tree damage which apparently is quite apparent and uh we'll backtrack from there needle in a haystack i mean 11 years to find this thing yeah and it was only because that one dude was basically made it his mission to find it and went to the sun no it was just some local guys was obsessed with flying over occasionally and looking for it and it sounds like something out of a movie but apparently the day he found it i think it was his wife he told he was like this is it i'm giving it one more shot and i'm finding this thing today and he saw it from the air and then came back it is getting a little denser ah a lot of saplings in here all right frank and i split up a little bit just 25 30 yards apart get our eyeballs spread out and he was following what he thought was tree damage broken trees now you gotta keep in mind it's been 30 years but he was following that this is definitely tougher than i expected [Music] but he just told me to come over so where's your voice oh you're right there you got a little evidence oh wow that's in some brush oh is that snow or is that a wing know well we gotta look lead the way oh i see it i feel like i see a piece of metal frank i do i do indeed and i think down to your right we might find what we're looking for oh i see some stuff oh wow yeah the gps coordinates might be a little off right because this is a little right of what oh wow yeah oh it's all over man [Music] i touched it it's like a piece of engine oh i think that's it right here [Music] wow it's all over the place man little things right there all right right through that brush continental exhaust look at this man sensor that obviously didn't work down your plane yeah there's a wheel more pieces over there let me go straight oh boy oh boy seeing anything man-made out here is weird seeing something tragic is just odd i'm gonna go i'm gonna go right around here oh yeah yep well it was traveling from there and hit here so this is cockpit but where's the nose of it man probably came off when it came through the trees the nose is gone like nowhere to be seen well the other half is over here and just the fact that there's pieces of engine all the way up there is yeah all right i'll come that way you found it frank i was trusting technology too much you went with your gut you came right in on it there's a propeller really oh yeah damn landing gear any gear popped out i mean i know he wasn't on approach jeez this is um not to be morbid dude but this thing is wrecked like that's a fast impact look at all this i mean there's your tree damage i guess yeah yeah i have to assume in a good way that it was it was quick for this guy oh geez so the cessna 414 was a twin engine so two propeller plane yeah so that's one of them it's got stickers on it still macaulay serviced by aircraft specialist inc this has been sitting here for 25 plus years yeah i mean it really came apart man the other propellers over there this is the tail the other landing gear is right here dude landing gear is like 30 yards apart you know i said the nose was missing but part of it's right here man so the nose came off on initial impact i guess and the plane was just going so fast the fuselage kept going it's definitely not like noticeable actually since they found it it's been what 10 50 no it's been 15 years since they found it it was missing for 11 15 years since they found it so i guess back 15 years ago they could actually see tree damage but dude we probably walk by this stuff like three times i mean this is a massive debris field 500 feet long yeah so that's probably about 500 feet oh and look frank well i mean that's an old tree and it's busted off the top and so is that one and that's about the width of wingspan probably right so it might have came in right here i'm thinking this is impact zone yeah which if i look at metal down here there's metal here definitely got pretty chunked up at this point and then shot right up well we'll go back up towards the fuselage give that another look around it's about 2 45 so we spent some time looking for this and that's with supposed gps coordinates i do have to give a thanks it was a viewer of mine who actually put me onto this sent me a blog post i believe it was his it's the only documentation online i can find of anybody else coming here i'm sure other people have but as far as online goes that's all i could find was his page i'll link it in my uh description it definitely came from down the hill there's no other physical way about it but look somebody wrote middle on that maybe an investigator maybe yeah but this is not the front of the plane i mean look at the seats are facing look at the seats so this may have spun around in a circle and landed backwards because this is the back of the plane i mean it came right through this opening it's i mean god knows the physics that we're a play but that's a toy that that's the back of the plane seat rest are facing forward middle obviously yeah it's got moss growing on it i wonder if there's any other stuff written on it's crazy but yeah that confused me because it's facing uphill but wow don't know what else to say i mean we found it um and i think that pilot is you know long gone obviously but physically too yeah i'm not going to poke him proud anymore that uh we found it so we're gonna start heading back up the hill and um late lunch we got canned food because we couldn't bring our own water so frank actually brought some backpacking meals i brought just some canned food and we got some quesadillas and um we're just gonna head back up the mountain i guess follow the debris path out why not it should lead us to camp and uh yeah then we'll actually set camp up i guess start that fire i see a blue pack a lot easier to find camping was that plane i'm hot okay there's a lot of uphill frank i already collected some firewood over there good little start awesome we got the old handsaw you know expensive backpacking equipment does the job just fine but honestly around here we were talking earlier we didn't even need that saw there's a lot of stuff here because people just don't camp here but because we have the saw i think our goal is to burn through this hold down tree tonight that'll be our fuel source no no not the bigger one but this guy right here that'll be our fuel source perfect it's uh 3 11. hey now yesterday was 3 11 day so we're gonna make a late lunch and then i think uh frank's gonna mess with the fire i'm gonna set the hammocks up i'm tired i might sit down for 30 seconds oh that might be dangerous it's true but i'm feeling pretty good now we did what we came to do found it it's not raining which it was supposed to be originally so good deal time to make a home big bag of food got some random mre stuff from last time got a whole pack of tortillas perfect not fajitas quesadillas a whole bag of cheese chili mac straight up chili it's all about chili we got some rice we can put in the quesadillas we're gonna make our own little creation and somewhere in here if we're lucky oh there's espresso frank it's gold up here right here bag of fire starters military like directly over it oh another one it's like 500 feet above this all right that's pretty cool all about aviation this time around that was cool that was directly over top of this couldn't have got any more no no so fire ground is definitely wet which is actually good because we're not worried about the fire spreading but we kicked away everything best we could keep an eye on tonight i probably overloaded the crap out of it with wood oh you got flames all right nice that'll kick we got the hammocks up so far the amoks now they don't have the uh sleeping pads in it yet but i'm getting there but once we get the pads in it they'll have a little more shape we're gonna try to pull off like a triangle three tree thing might be a little weird with the tarps but uh we're hoping that there won't be rain tonight anyway but we'll still put them up but that's about where we're at there it is a new stove it's like 15 bucks brs whatever brand that is titanium 25 grams small and it's warm enough to use canisters so we're gonna do that a little olive oil a little cheese a little tortilla get a little appetizer going nice salsa got some hot sauce over here chilling smoosh it like we haven't eaten dude we've had like two handfuls of trail mix and it's four o'clock all right stove's doing its job it's a little extra crispy in the center but i'll learn the hot spots it looks good to me oh yeah that's hot all right that knife's working good i've never used before put a little salsa in it so all right there you go all right oh yeah that's hot wow that's hot yeah real food yeah all right that's delicious oh yeah that works all right it works i'm gonna make note so frank that frank's got the uh fire popping this is our shanty town over here overlapping tarps a little crazy we're not expecting rain so i still wanted to put the tarp up just in case we get a little precipitation in the middle of night we are up on top of a mountain but looks a little tight but we tested it once we uh get in there actually frank's is a little higher mine's a little lower and uh we're both right under these three trees which is awesome because this is a great spot but there's not a ton of like clear open areas to put a hammock up to be honest just cause all these little saplings and stuff but that looks pretty good so i like that we got fire we got food it's not even five o'clock plenty of time till that big round ball and the sky goes down and uh yeah i think we're just gonna make food and hang out and have fun and uh cut wood i mean frank's already almost through i guess we're gonna be getting into another tree tonight yeah i think so yeah i think so [Applause] a little can of campbell's chili back on the fire heating up give that a stir every once in a while frank is going with chili mac as well but he went with mountain house i'm sorry he's going lasagna he's got chili mac for later he's got lasagna in the cooking bag there and we just heated that up with the uh i haven't brought this out in years but this is my gsi uh kettle it heats water up very quick cutting some wood putting some work in i think within five minutes his chili mac will be ready yeah mine might be a little longer on the fire but i got quesadillas in me so we're good we got the fm radio i don't know if we're gonna get any channels around here to be honest but we're gonna give it a shot so i think for the next hour so we're just going to see if we can find some classic rock on the old sanjian radio and hang out eat some food stare at the fire just reflect on the day [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the birds are awake and so are we frank and i have actually been up since well before sunrise since friday afternoon both woke up stars were still out um but we said yeah we'll just stay up so started building the fire and uh waiting for the sun to come out which it's out now came up right over there fire kicked up again frank made a nice log cabin it's cutting the wind down not to enhance the fire at all yeah it's bushcraft frank but we're gonna um i think we're gonna split it's about seven ish in the morning at this point we're gonna split our favorite biscuits and gravy we already measured out the appropriate amount of water last night to make sure that we definitely had that ready to go so we'll throw that on the tea kettle fire that up make a little breakfast and uh you know then we'll probably break down well we'll definitely break down the tarps and the hammocks they did did good last night it was a little chilly last night a little bit of breeze coming up the ridge um we did fine but it was cold this morning it was cold i don't know what it went down to but it was cold but it's warming up now i'll woke us up at about 2am yeah there was an owl that was harassing us from 2 to 4 a.m uh but that's all right little nature never hurt that's bushcraft frank just in case this gets any ideas weighed it down the wettest long little stick a little kettle a little fire breakfast is served look good all-time favorite oh yeah deal with that give us just enough energy to get out of here on towards wherever we're getting our post-type meal some sort of burger somewhere we're going to try not to be lazy and go to sheets it's so easy i mean it could happen but maybe we'll find a local joint but for now some lovely biscuits and gravy sausage biscuits and gravy jeez oh yeah put a little cheese on that piece why not we gotta finish it off extra colors there we go well man okay i didn't think i was hungry but i can eat this a little sunshine in my face we'll be good to go somebody's playing going somewhere frank i don't see them but i certainly hear them we are on the way out campsite is all broken down no trace has been left other than maybe a nice little rack of firewood for the next person and we're back on the district line trail sun is out it's feeling good no rain love that goes and we're just gonna head out same way we came in oh it's been steady uphill with our big old packs and granted we don't have all the water and food that we had yesterday but it's still been quite a push we're gonna take a layer off i don't know what temp it is i would guess maybe 40s creep into the 50s i mean it feels like 70 to us so we're gonna pop a layer off that is for sure we're back right now to the um big beachy district line intersection which has a fun spot in my heart now this is where we really started kind of focusing on getting getting to the plane and where we're going to camp but we're back now a little more uphill but pretty soon we're going to be uh on what we've dubbed the mossy highway that nice flat section is probably the most beautiful part of the trail and the easiest but we're not quite there yet so shed a layer cool down hydrate maybe have a snack i don't know although i am saving some calories for for a burger that's in my future oh i could deal with regular hiking boots instead of winter boots like at least at the moment but going through that snow i'm glad to have them but they are they're getting hot looking like some steaming boots in the morning oh they're steaming full circle we are back to the jeep mission complete a little bit of snow has melted it's not as deep as it was when we first got here that's for sure feels pretty good out sun's out we did everything we came to do my last trip was a little bit of a train wreck so i'm pretty happy i couldn't ask for this trip to go any better honestly it was everything that i set out to do i think frank and i had a good time weather was phenomenal you know the tome is a little somber for this one but we also had a good time and good food good company good weather so i can't complain cranberry wilderness is top notch so thumbs up from me i think that wraps it up i'm pretty hungry i haven't really eaten much today as usual um it is 12.09 so we're doing great on time we're gonna go find ourselves a place to uh replace some calories so until next time i'm syntax77 and right now it's cheeseburger time

Channel: sintax77

Views: 153,156

Rating: 4.8686867 out of 5

Keywords: sintax77, backpacking, hiking, camping, woods camping, Cessna 414, N28901, wilderness camping, plane crash hike, plane crash, crash site, secret hiking trails, Cranberry Wilderness, backpacking trip, outdoors, spring camping, spring backpacking, monongahela national forest, wild camping, forest, camp, camping in the woods, overnight, West Virginia, west virginia backpacking, Cranberry Wilderness plane crash, Cranberry backcountry, missing hiker

Id: 0diRN8JKrbk

Length: 45min 17sec (2717 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 24 2021