Est. 1988

THE CHUCKWAGON
GANG

An annual camping trip. And by “camping,” we mean a very large, very nice cabin.

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Next Generation
The Legend

Five guys. One trip.
Since 1988.

It started in 1988, the summer after Jim graduated. A few friends, one trip, and a promise nobody actually said out loud but everybody kept. The rest of us were still in high school then; we didn’t graduate until 1990.

Jobs came. Weddings came. Babies came. And when the babies came, the trip skipped a few years. Then it came roaring back, and in 2016 it became something bigger: the wives and kids came along, and what had been five guys in the woods turned into the whole family. It was better for it.

Nearly four decades in, the Chuckwagon Gang still rides. The “camping” got considerably more comfortable, the crew got considerably bigger, and the stories got… well, let’s say refined with age. What started with a few teenagers is now eighteen people strong: the five founders, the families, and nine kids who think this is just what everyone does.

They’re right. It is. It’s what we do.

The full Chuckwagon Gang, adults and kids, lined up on a sunny cabin deck with trees behind them
The whole crew, on the deck.
The Founders

The Original Five

Three started it in 1988. George talked his way in by 1993, Brian by 1997. Nobody has left since. The names on the shirts are not negotiable.

FOUNDING

Heath Lockard

on the trip since 1988
HeathL the Diesel
FOUNDING

Shawn Nardella

on the trip since 1988
Poppin’ Fresh
FOUNDING

Jim McGregor

on the trip since 1988
Jagged B
JOINED 1993

George McElwee

on the trip since 1993
Notorious B.I.G
JOINED 1997

Brian Zarallo

on the trip since 1997
Huggy Z
The five founders standing together on the cabin deck, blue sky and mountains behind them
The Original Five, 30+ years in.

Every founder had a bowling shirt with his rap name stitched on the chest and THE CHUCKWAGON GANG across the back. Heath, Shawn and Jim still have theirs.

The Next Generation

Born Into the Gang

Nine kids who’ve grown up on this trip and figure every family spends a week in a cabin with the same crew. Membership was automatic.

Claire Ryan Owen Vivian Sam Brook Colton Asher Mason
Kids in yellow safety glasses at the clay shooting range outside a log cabin, grinning
Safety glasses on. The next generation, out at the range.

For its first stretch this was five guys getting away from it all. The families didn’t start coming until 2016, and then it became eighteen people bringing it all with them. The kids don’t vote on the destination yet. Yet.

This Year’s Camp

Seven Springs

This year the wagons rolled to Seven Springs, Pennsylvania: Laurel Highlands mountain air, eighteen people under one (large, very nice) roof, and the annual reminder that nobody in this group has ever once agreed on a thermostat setting.

Same crew. Same trip. Bigger cabin.

2026
SEVEN SPRINGS
Laurel Highlands, Pennsylvania
The Trail So Far

Somewhere New, Most Years

Reconstructed one argument at a time around a fire on County Line Road, with five guys holding five slightly different versions of history. The tent years are on the record now. The cabin years still need somebody to say them out loud.

The Tent Years · 1988–1997
1988
Gerald R. Freeman · Sutton Lake, WV
Year one, the summer after high school. Heath drove the 1963 Pontiac Catalina, light blue, low miles, out of a garage where it had sat for years. They called it the Love Yacht. Frozen pizza and ramen noodles.
1989
Bulltown · Braxton County, WV
The only year here, and Memorial Day weekend. Bulltown charges by the head, so Jim got in the trunk of the Love Yacht. He is six foot two, and while Heath and Shawn were at the guard window he started rocking back and forth on purpose, swaying the whole car in front of the attendant. The attendant never said a word. Camping fuel lit up the whole campground. The site was next to the playground, and after a late night the kids out there had the last word: “Hey, they’re finally getting up.”
1990–1992
Gerald R. Freeman · up on the hill, then the point
The pontoon boat years, on Jim’s grandpa’s boat. It quit running and had to be towed in. One genuinely terrible sunburn.
1993
Gerald R. Freeman · site 99
George’s first year. The doll with the knife through its head, the snake, and the tinfoil hat.
1994
Gerald R. Freeman
Jim mailed his gear home instead of carrying it. George mailed it back to his office while he was traveling, and his boss left a voicemail: “you got a package from the Acme Inflatable Sheep and Doll Company.”
1995–1996
Gerald R. Freeman · site 111, then down to the left
The Bud Man years: the guy in the next site who wore the hat, talked to everybody, never once complained about the noise, and was honestly part of the ruckus. Also the pentagram burned into the ground, and the night Shawn and Jim ran the campground naked. Somebody yelled out of the dark, “bring your girlfriends next time.”
1997
Gerald R. Freeman · site 99
Brian’s first year, and the last one in tents. The beer bottle went in the fire and everybody ate glass. They fished through a lightning storm as a hurricane came in because Heath worked out the clearing had no trees to fall on them. George gigged a fish with a Lucky 13. The neighbors ran Jeff Foxworthy at full volume straight through the storm and were still at it the next day, after nearly everyone else had cleared out.
The Cabin Years · 1998–today
1998
The switch
Jim moved to Michigan that October. The tents went in the garage and the cabins started. Nobody has slept on the ground since.
1999–2008
The cabin years, still being written down
Snowshoe, West Virginia was one of them. The rest of the locations live in the founders’ heads and nowhere else yet.
~2009–2012
The gap
The one stretch the wagons didn’t roll. Nobody is certain of the exact years.
2016
Canaan Valley, West Virginia
The year the families started coming, and the first one we have photos of. A day up at the gorge overlook, a pond behind the cabin, sticks turned into swords, and the hot tub going strong past midnight. See the 11 photos ↓
~2013–2025
Canaan Valley, then Snowshoe, then south to the Gorge
Canaan Valley for 2016 and 2017. A long stretch at Snowshoe after that: 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023. In 2025 the wagons went south to Oak Hill. 2020 was two families and a great many masks. The front half of this stretch is still being pieced together, so if you know where we were, tell Shawn and it goes up here. See the albums ↓
2026
Seven Springs, PA
Eighteen strong, and the first year in Pennsylvania. The current chapter. See the photos ↓
The Legend

Gary, Caught on Tape

He shows up almost every single year. Is he a myth? Is he real? Nobody knows for sure. What we have is the footage. Judge for yourself.

Snowshoe · The Village
Strolling the village like he owns the place.
Snowshoe · July 5, 2019
The kids saw him coming up the stairs. Brian filmed the whole thing, which he says proves it wasn’t him.
Snowshoe · 2023
Shot from a distance, through the trees, behind a fence, ducking down among the rocks. Which is exactly how this sort of footage always looks.
The Album

Proof It Happened

Three decades of evidence, recovered one shoebox at a time. Every year we dig up its photos, it gets its own page here. Tap any picture to blow it up.

1988
Year one
1 photo

Where it all started. The summer after Jim's senior year: Heath drove the Catalina, dinner was frozen pizza and ramen noodles, and a bottle got passed around in the woods. Tents, a fire ring, a cooler parked within reach. This is the oldest photograph on the site.

A night flash photograph of three young men leaning in together behind a campfire ring. Left to right: a man in glasses and a black, gray and pink jacket, a man in a teal shirt and open blue plaid flannel with a dark knit cap, and a man in a white sweatshirt and a straw hat. A blue cooler sits at the left edge.
Year one. Three of them hunched over the fire, arms around each other, with the cooler close by.
?
The early years
3 photos · one of them dated

Three photographs with nothing written on the back. A flash going off at night with most of the crew still upright behind it, somebody up on skis down a green corridor of water, and a swim on a rocky bank. They are from the camping era, before there was a cabin to go to. The night one is now named all the way across, and it dates itself: George had joined by then and Brian had not started coming yet, which puts it between 1993 and 1996. The other two, nobody has dated.

A night flash photograph of six people at a campsite. Left to right: a man in a plaid shirt and cap holding a can, a man in glasses standing behind him, a woman in a red jacket over a white top at the center front, a woman in a straw hat behind her, a man in a white sweatshirt, and a man in a gray sweater at the right edge.
Left to right: Shawn with Jim behind him, Kelly James in the red, Stacy Morris in the hat, Heath, and George on the end.
A water skier photographed from the back of a moving boat, riding the wake down a narrow stretch of green water between steep forested hills.
Up on the skis, with the hills closing in on both sides.
A man in white shorts wading out of a shallow green river toward a rocky bank, dense summer woods along the far shore.
Out of the water and back up the bank.
1999
Location unrecorded
1 photo · more wanted

The first dated photograph from the cabins era. Five of them lined up against the stone, one absurd hat each: a bush hat, a feathered headdress, a hard hat, a pink sombrero, and something furry. Nobody has said whose idea the hats were.

Five young men standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a rough stone wall, each wearing a different silly hat: a wide bush hat with a chin strap, a feathered headdress, a yellow hard hat, a pink straw sombrero, and a fur cap.
Five of them against the stone, one ridiculous hat each.
2000
Location unrecorded
1 photo

The cabins era, a couple of years in. Four of them in front of a stone fireplace, a rifle and a couple of knives brought out for the portrait, everybody grinning like it was their idea. The year was written right on the album page.

Four men posing in front of a stone fireplace with a wooden mantel in a cabin living room. Left to right: a man in a black shirt holding something upright at his shoulder, a man in a gray T-shirt and dark cap holding a knife, a man in glasses and a white polo holding a rifle upright, and a man in a red and white plaid flannel holding a knife. A black and white checkered painting hangs on the wall at right.
Four of them against the stone, posed for the frontier portrait.
?
The cabin years
1 photo · year unknown

No date on this one. Five of them lined up down the hearth, each with a hand on the shoulder of the one in front, under a pair of crossed canoe paddles. A stone fireplace means it is from the cabin years, after the tents. Which year, and which cabin, nobody has worked out yet.

Five men standing in a staggered line in front of a tall stone fireplace, each resting a hand on the shoulder of the man ahead. Crossed wooden canoe paddles hang over the mantel, snowshoes and a dreamcatcher hang on the walls, and a basket of pink flowers sits in the foreground.
Five of them in a line down the hearth. If you know the year, say so.
2016
Canaan Valley, West Virginia
40 photos

The first year the families came along, and the whole shape of the trip changed. Canaan Valley: paper plates spelling out the year on the mantel, a day at Blackwater Falls with the whole crew on the boardwalk, a cavern tour that came with hard hats, the kids turning the cabin yard into a battlefield, and the hot tub still running long after the fire died. This is the year the Chuckwagon Gang stopped being five guys in the woods.

The entire Chuckwagon Gang, adults standing in a row with nine children seated on the floor in front, posed before a tall stone fireplace. Paper plates on the mantel spell 2 0 1 6 around a red sign reading CHUCKWAGON. Left to right the adults are a woman in a pale green top, a man in a brown Chevrolet shirt and camouflage shorts, a long-haired man in gray behind them, a man in a black graphic shirt, a woman in a purple v-neck, a man in a red cap and West Virginia Mountaineers shirt, a woman in black holding a toddler in olive, a bearded man in glasses, and a woman in a navy dress and red headscarf.
Everybody, and every one of them now named. Under a mantel that says 2016 in paper plates, with CHUCKWAGON! propped in the middle of it. Standing, left to right: Mandy Lockard, Heath Lockard, George McElwee behind them, Brian Zarallo, Lanay Zarallo, Shawn Nardella, Kelly Nardella with Owen on her hip, Jim McGregor, and Jone McGregor. Seated, left to right: Colton, Brook, Vivian, Claire, Sam, Mason, Ryan, and Asher. Eighteen people in one frame, the year the families came.
The five founders standing shoulder to shoulder in front of the stone fireplace with the 2016 paper plates and CHUCKWAGON sign on the mantel above them. Left to right: Heath in a brown Chevrolet t-shirt and camo shorts, Brian in a black graphic tee, Shawn in a red ball cap and a West Virginia Mountaineers shirt, Jim bearded in an olive pocket tee, and George in a gray tee with long dark hair.
The five founders under the same mantel, left to right: Heath, Brian, Shawn, Jim, George. Ten years before anybody thought to build them a website.
The full gang gathered around a large sandstone boulder at a forest overlook, several people posing on top while others take photos from below.
The kids take the overlook rock, and every adult present reaches for a phone at the same moment.
The whole gang of adults and children posed together on a wooden boardwalk at Blackwater Falls, a mossy rock face and dense green forest rising behind them.
Blackwater Falls, the whole crew stopped on the footbridge, and for once almost everybody is looking at the same camera.
Four children leaning on a wooden observation-deck railing with their backs to the camera, watching the twin drops of Blackwater Falls pour over dark layered rock.
Four of them at the falls rail, left to right: Ryan, Colton, Brook, and Vivian. Brook’s shirt handles the introductions from behind.
Adults and children spread along a long wooden observation deck above Blackwater Falls, several holding toddlers up to see over the railing.
The overlook deck, and everybody finding a gap in the rail.
Three children climbing up on a wooden railing to look at Blackwater Falls, a fourth child turning back toward the camera.
Seconds later: Brook up on the rail for a better angle, and Ryan turning around to see who is taking the picture.
Blackwater Falls seen from the overlook, two separate falls dropping over stepped sandstone into a brown tannin-stained pool, evergreens above.
Blackwater Falls itself: two drops, tannin-dark water, and the amber pool underneath.
A girl in a rocking chair, a man in a ballcap on a bench and a woman with a boy asleep on her lap in another rocker, on a wooden porch beside a rack of postcards and guidebooks.
Rocking chairs on the store porch: Jone with Asher gone limp in her lap, Jim on the bench, and one more entirely out of gas.
A grinning child with wet curly hair pointing at a shelf of carved black bear figurines in a gift shop, the base of each one lettered BEAR ARMS.
Mason in the gift shop, pointing out a shelf of bear figurines labeled BEAR ARMS.
A close selfie of a bearded man in glasses, two children with windblown hair pulling faces, and a woman in sunglasses and a red headscarf, green woods behind them.
Jim’s arm gets long enough to fit all four McGregors in: Jim, Mason, Asher, and Jone.
Brook standing on top of a large mossy boulder in the woods in a purple t-shirt and green patterned shorts, holding a low branch, smiling down at the camera.
Brook, summited, and posing for the record.
Seven children standing on top of a large cracked sandstone boulder in the woods, six clustered together on the left and one boy in a blue t-shirt standing apart on the right, tall summer trees behind them.
The overlook rock again, this time claimed outright by the next generation. Brook in the purple. One holdout took his own corner of it.
Two young children wearing oversized blue plastic hard hats issued for a cavern tour, standing beside a wooden rail fence and gravel path, an adult's hand resting on the rail behind them.
Brook and Colton, hard hats issued, waiting on the cavern tour.
The gang lined up along a metal handrail on a walkway deep inside a limestone cavern, adults standing at the back and seven children in front, all wearing colored plastic hard hats, stalactites hanging from the ceiling above them.
The cavern tour proper, stopped on the walkway under the stalactites. Every hard hat a different color and not one of them straight.
A man in a red shirt and a small boy in a blue shirt fishing side by side at the edge of a pond, mown grass and a forested ridge behind them under a bright blue sky.
Two rods, one pond, a whole green hillside to themselves.
Nine children sitting in a row on a stone fireplace hearth, the mantel above them decorated with paper plates spelling 2016 and a CHUCK WAGON sign.
The whole next generation under the 2016 mantel, left to right: Brook, Colton, Asher, Vivian, Claire, Sam, Owen, Ryan, Mason.
Eight adults crowded into a steaming hot tub at night, beers in hand, lit only by the tub's underwater lights.
Past midnight in the hot tub, steam and cold ones.
A family of four posing at a wooden overlook railing with a deep green forested gorge behind them.
The McGregors at the same rail: Jim and Jone, with Mason in the Beatles shirt and Asher in the neon yellow.
A mom, a dad, a girl in a BRAVE shirt and a toddler on the dad's hip at the overlook railing.
And the Zarallos: Lanay and Brian, with Vivian in the BRAVE shirt and Sam up on Brian’s arm.
The Nardella family of five at the Blackwater Falls overlook railing. Left to right: Ryan in a grey bug-print tee, Kelly in a lavender v-neck and sunglasses, Shawn in a white Adidas tee and ballcap, Owen in a white fire-truck tee, and Claire in a navy MEOW tee, the wooded gorge dropping away behind them.
The Nardellas at the overlook rail, left to right: Ryan, Kelly, Shawn, Owen, and Claire.
The Lockard family of four posing on a wooded trail: Heath in a maroon shirt and sunglasses, Mandy in a red Nike shirt, Brook in a blue shirt, and Colton in a blue shirt.
The Lockards: Heath, Mandy, Brook, and Colton.
A young girl in a purple shirt with a round medallion standing on the stone overlook platform, adults at the railing behind her.
Brook at the overlook, straight down the lens, with the drop behind her and no interest in it whatsoever.
A dad in a Cleveland ballcap carrying a toddler in a fire-truck shirt who is pointing off into the trees along a boardwalk.
Shawn and Owen, and something across the gorge worth pointing at.
Two young children climbing the bent branches of a small tree in a mulched cabin yard.
Brook and Colton, straight up the nearest tree. The cabin yard was repurposed as a jungle gym inside the hour.
Two boys in a wooded cabin yard, each holding a long stick like a sword.
Owen and Sam, and a stick considerably longer than either of them. It is a sword now.
Two young girls sitting on a weathered wooden picnic table in the cabin yard, one holding a pink toy glove.
Brook and Vivian, holding down the picnic table. Brook still has the feather headdress from the group photo.
A dad helping a small child cast a fishing rod at the edge of a still cabin pond, a cabin with a deck on the far bank.
Jim and Mason at the reel, hands over hands. Cabin pond out back.
A two-lane road curving along a mountainside past a guardrail, layered blue ridges ahead and a heavy dark storm cloud filling the sky above them.
The way in, with the weather already making its position clear.
A tall brown wood-sided cabin built into a wooded slope with two stacked deck levels, a man leaning on the upper rail looking down, two children in the grass at the bottom of the frame.
The cabin, two decks deep into the hillside, and somebody already surveying from the top one.
Nine children around a long wooden dining table covered with cereal bowls, a milk jug, syrup and paper plates, tall windows onto green woods behind them and a carved wooden bear standing in the corner.
The kids' table, running at full capacity. The carved bear is watching from the corner; he turns up again next year wearing George's Carhartt.
A man in a red t-shirt reading aloud from a picture book on a leather couch while two boys sit along the same couch listening, a cabin kitchen and wall clock behind them.
George reading out loud on the leather couch, audience of two, neither of them looking at the book.
A well-used squeeze bottle on a kitchen counter with a strip of green painter's tape for a label, hand-lettered WEST BY GOD VIRGINIA HOT DOG CHILI, a jar of iced tea behind it.
Somebody made hot dog chili from scratch, decanted it, and labeled it in marker: WEST “BY GOD” VIRGINIA HOT DOG CHILI. The bottle earned that label the hard way.
Adults kneeling on a carpeted cabin floor covered in pink and purple sleeping bags and pillows, tucking in several children for the night under lamp light.
Nine kids, one floor, and the nightly business of getting all of them horizontal.
Five children in a hot tub on a cabin patio with the cover propped open behind them, a beach ball floating, one boy standing on the steps about to get in.
The hot tub, claimed by the shortest members of the party.
A boy in striped swim trunks standing beside a hot tub looking in, a girl leaning over the edge from inside, three more children in the water behind her.
Negotiations at the rim.
Three adults in a hot tub at night lit green from the underwater lights, steam rising off the water, a small fire burning in the dark behind them.
And then at night it belongs to the grown-ups. Fire going off to the left.
A man standing in a hot tub at night holding a drink, lit green from below, two women seated in the water beside him and a fire glowing in the background.
Standing room, drink in hand, in no hurry at all.
A wood-panelled basement rec room with a Coca-Cola sign and college pennants on the walls and a wood stove in the corner. A man sits in a wooden chair on the left, a woman sits cross-legged on the floor holding a drink, and others are stretched out on a red futon at the right of the frame.
Downstairs in the cabin: wood panelling, a Coca-Cola sign, a wood stove nobody needed in August, and Jim and Lanay settled in for the night. Lanay is still in the purple from the group photo, which puts this the same evening.
Three men reclining along a red futon in the wood-panelled basement, a beer bottle on the wooden arm rest beside them, college pennants for West Virginia, Miami and Cincinnati pinned to the wall above.
Along the futon under the pennants, feet up, nothing whatsoever on the schedule.
2017
Canaan Valley, West Virginia
7 photos · family trip

The year the trip doubled: the whole gang came for the big family week, and the guys ran a second trip of their own. This is the family week: the kids-under-the-mantel class photo now a full-blown tradition, and the carved bear on the hearth wearing George's forgotten Carhartt like one more member of the crew. The whole gang finally has its 2017 portrait too, year written straight on the photo, plus the one taken a second later where nobody is behaving.

Nine children posed in a row on a stone fireplace hearth, a carved wooden bear in a Carhartt shirt standing in front of them.
The 2017 lineup, back row L to R: Sam, Ryan, Colton, Brook, Claire, Vivian, Mason, Asher; Owen up front by the bear.
The same nine children on the hearth now goofing off, arms thrown up, tongues out, one covering her eyes.
And the version four seconds later, when the posing gave out.
A woman leaning in to photograph a row of children on a stone hearth with her phone, a carved bear statue draped in a Carhartt shirt in the foreground.
Lining up the annual class photo, two phones up, and the bear planted front and center in George’s forgotten Carhartt.
Two young boys sitting cross-legged on the floor by a wall of windows, playing with a red toy fire-station playset between them.
The rug gets a fire station: two builders, one playset.
The full Chuckwagon Gang posed in front of a tall stone fireplace, adults standing behind a row of children, a carved wooden bear in an oversized Carhartt shirt at the center front; the year 2017 is written in the top right of the photo.
The whole gang against the stone, with 2017 stamped into the corner of the picture afterwards.
The same group in the same spot a moment later, pulling faces: several adults and children shouting, gurning or making horns with their hands, the carved bear still front and center.
And the version where everybody stopped behaving.
Nine children standing in a row along the stone hearth ledge in front of the fireplace, with a carved wooden bear wearing an oversized tan Carhartt shirt on the floor in front of them.
The next generation up on the hearth, the bear in George's forgotten Carhartt keeping the front.
2017
Canaan Valley, West Virginia
2 photos · guys trip

The other half of 2017: the guys ran their own trip, no families along. Golden-hour bass off the pond, a football game on in the cabin, and Brian committing fully to a Flash costume that nobody requested and nobody could talk him out of.

A grown man standing hands-on-hips in a cabin living room wearing a full red Flash costume with hood and lightning-bolt emblem, a football game on the TV and a pool table behind him.
Brian turned up as the Flash. No one asked. No one objected.
Heath holding up a largemouth bass by the mouth at the edge of a pond at sunset, a large house and turning fall trees across the water behind him.
Heath and a good pond bass, golden hour off the bank.
2018
Snowshoe, West Virginia
17 photos

The year the pool table became the chuck wagon. A whole week of food spread across the felt in open defiance of the framed house rule sitting right on top of it, a drink bar the kids raided down to the last Capri Sun, and the afternoon Gary the Gorilla came out of the treeline and, as always, the kids went after him. Cards Against Humanity ran late. The rest of the week is here too now: the grown-ups lined up against the stone with the year written on the photo, all nine kids on the hearth in pajamas, a creek worked end to end, and a sunset off the overlook worth stopping for.

Four children walking across a sunny lawn toward a large upright gorilla, the lead child aiming a blue Super Soaker water gun at it, evergreens all around.
Gary the Gorilla makes his appearance, and the kids close in. You never let Gary get too near; they'll come after him with whatever they've got, Super Soaker included.
A cabin game room where a pool table is completely covered in bread, snacks, chip bags and stuffed animals, kids and adults around the edges, a stained-glass lamp overhead and a Snowshoe West Virginia poster on the wall.
The pool table becomes the chuck wagon: a week of food spread across the felt.
A framed sign reading PLEASE: NO food or drinks on Pool Table or Foosball table, sitting on green pool-table felt surrounded by bananas, Doritos, a knife and snack wrappers.
The house rule, framed and propped right on the table it was losing to.
Two children at a wooden cabin bar counter crowded with water bottles, juice boxes and Yoo-hoo, one small boy reaching up for a bottle.
Raiding the drink bar: Capri Suns, Yoo-hoos, and a run on the water bottles.
A girl leaning on the rail of a pool table with her chin resting in her hands, open bags of Doritos on the green felt in front of her.
Chin in hands over a wall of Doritos, waiting on whatever comes next.
A curly-haired child in a gray Riot Fest t-shirt sipping a Hi-C juice box through a straw, a Capri Sun and Yoo-hoo on the counter beside him.
Hi-C through a tiny straw, dead serious about it.
Two grown men arm over shoulder at a cabin table at night; the man on the left wears a white t-shirt printed with a photo of a teenage boy in a cut-off shirt and colorful jams shorts with a mullet, posing by a car. Cards Against Humanity cards and a salt-rimmed margarita on the table.
Heath and Shawn. And yes, that’s teenage Shawn printed on Heath’s shirt: jams, a cut-off tee, and a mullet in full bloom. Cards Against Humanity ran late.
Five men standing in a row in front of the cabin's stone fireplace, a large abstract painting on the mantel above them; the year 2018 is written in the top corner of the photo.
The five founders against the stone, left to right: Jim, Heath, George, Brian, and Shawn. 2018 stamped into the corner.
Nine children arranged on and around a stone fireplace hearth in pajamas and shorts, an abstract painting and two lanterns on the mantel behind them.
All nine kids on the hearth, and George sitting in the middle of them.
The same nine children rearranged, several perched on the stone ledges of the fireplace, the smallest sitting on the hearth at the right.
The same nine, same hearth, George no longer among them.
A mounted whitetail deer head with a full rack, fixed high on the pine plank wall of the cabin.
The stag on the wall, watching the whole week.
A framed blood alcohol content chart on a wall, headed BLOOD-ALCOHOL CHART, with weight tables for female and male and a line reading FOR BEST RESULTS - DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE.
A blood-alcohol chart held to the wall with two magnets, as West Virginia code requires. Nobody has admitted to consulting it.
Eight children spread across a wide rocky creek bed in the woods, several crouched among the stones, one in a tie-dye shirt in the middle.
Eight of them out on the rocks, working the creek end to end.
A hazy sunset from a mountain overlook, layered blue ridges receding into a pale gold sky, framed by dark branches.
The overlook at the end of the day, with the ridges going soft.
A wide green field with farm buildings along its edge under a tall bank of white cumulus cloud, a low blue ridge on the horizon.
Flat green, big sky, and the mountains a long way off.
A close selfie of Jone and Mason pressed cheek to cheek, both grinning, Mason's wet hair spiked up and lit bright by the sun above them, a WELCOME FRIENDS sign on the wall behind.
Jone and Mason, wet hair and two grins, somewhere between the water and dinner.
Mason sitting back on a dark red leather couch under a pale knitted blanket, holding a cherry up by the stem, a white scalloped plate piled with dark cherries beside him.
Mason, a plate of cherries, a blanket, and absolutely no further plans.
2019
Snowshoe, West Virginia
21 photos

Fourth of July week back at Snowshoe. The whole crew lined up at the trail junction with the weather coming in hard behind them, a day trip down the mountain to stand under the Green Bank telescope, and a movie on a screen in the village square with the bunting still up. Back at the cabin: snails by the fistful out of the wet woods, a blowdown big enough to climb inside, and a loft landing that filled up with kids and screens every time the weather turned. And on the fifth, Gary turned up. There is tape.

The full Chuckwagon Gang posed at a ski trail junction, adults standing in a row behind ten children, signs for the Crosscut and Grabhammer trails on a post at left and dark storm clouds massing over green mountains behind.
Most of the crew at the trail junction, under the signs for Crosscut and Grabhammer, with the weather coming in fast behind them.
The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, an enormous white steel dish on an angled lattice frame, standing in a green valley with forested ridges rising behind it.
The Green Bank telescope: 485 feet, 8,500 tons, sitting in a valley that has to stay radio-quiet for it.
An interpretive sign at Green Bank Observatory headed What a Dish, with photographs of the telescope and facts about its 2.3-acre surface and 485-foot height.
The sign does the bragging: a dish surface big enough for two football fields.
An outdoor movie screening at night in the Snowshoe village square, a lit projection screen at left, people watching from folding chairs and the pavement, illuminated lodge buildings and a clock tower behind.
Movie night in the village square, bunting still up from the Fourth.
Low cloud pouring through forested mountain ridges below the viewpoint, the sky above them going orange and pink through broken cloud.
Then the whole valley filled with cloud, and the sky did this.
The full Chuckwagon Gang crowded onto a wooden cabin deck, nine adults standing behind nine children, log siding and a window at right, overcast sky behind; the year 2019 is written across the top left of the photo.
The whole gang out on the cabin deck, with 2019 stamped into the corner.
Nine adults posed together on a wooden cabin deck in the evening, some holding drinks, one man kneeling at the front, a green hillside and split-rail fence behind them.
The grown-ups, on the deck, at the hour the deck is for grown-ups.
Nine children lined up along a wooden cabin deck, several holding toy blasters and one holding an orange flag, trees and overcast sky behind the railing.
The kids, same deck, armed.
Four men standing and talking on a cabin deck holding drinks, log cabin wall and window behind them, mountains and cloud in the distance.
Four men, one railing, the whole valley behind them, and every one of them looking at a phone.
Adults gathered on a cabin deck beside an open white door, one woman with dark red hair facing away from the camera, dense green woods beyond the railing.
The other end of the deck, six of them mid-conversation, and a door that would not stay shut.
A boy in a neon yellow rash guard holding a brown snail up in each fist toward the camera, tall spruce trunks and green forest floor behind him.
Two at once. The woods were full of them.
A girl with wet hair and a swimsuit smiling at the camera, a small brown snail crawling along her outstretched palm, forest path behind her.
One walking the length of a hand.
A girl in a navy star-print tank top holding a snail out toward the camera beside a boy in a bright blue shirt, both standing in the woods.
Held out for inspection, whether you asked or not.
Four children crouched close together on dark wet ground in the woods, hands down among leaves and stones, searching.
The hunt, and what the hunt actually produced: three heads down over one snail.
Five children standing spaced out across a mossy, root-covered forest slope with arms raised, tall bare tree trunks rising around them.
Five of them in the spruce, holding up a fallen trunk that did not need holding up.
A blond boy in a light blue rash guard standing inside a huge tangle of fallen spruce trunks and dead branches in the forest, grinning up at the camera.
A blowdown big enough to climb inside, which is all the invitation anybody needed.
Looking up at the open second-floor landing of a log cabin, pine plank ceiling and heavy wooden railings, several children visible along the upper level.
The loft landing, from below. Everything on the cabin funnels through here.
Children sitting at intervals down a carpeted staircase in the cabin, several holding tablets, daylight coming from a window above.
Stairs, screens, weather outside. A working system.
The upstairs landing of the cabin with a sloped pine ceiling and octagonal window, several children sitting and lying on cushions and pillows on the wooden floor with tablets.
Upstairs, the landing turns into a floor everybody lives on.
A child in a blue cat-print t-shirt standing in the foreground of the cabin's upstairs landing looking off to the side, other children on the floor behind with tablets.
Same landing, one second later.
Two children slumped together asleep or nearly asleep on a couch, one still holding a tablet, a snack packet beside them.
Two of them down on the floor with tablets, a Nerf gun within reach of the nearest hand.
2020
The year everything closed
22 photos · the COVID year

Two families went. The Zarallos and the Lockards drove down anyway and everybody else stayed home. For a long time the year was filed as the one nobody photographed, and then twenty-two pictures turned up. The first is eight people in surgical masks lined up behind the fire pit. The second is the same eight, in the same spot, on the same afternoon, with the masks off. After that it is a week like any other: a birthday cake, air hockey, a hot tub somebody put far too much soap into, and a gravel road with nothing coming the other way. The trip didn't break. It just got very small for a while.

Eight people in surgical masks posed on a wooden cabin deck behind a large round fire pit, four adults standing behind four children, green trees and tall summer clouds behind them.
Masks on. Four adults, four kids, one fire pit: the only year the picture needed explaining.
The same eight people on the same cabin deck behind the fire pit with their masks removed, all smiling at the camera under a bright blue sky with cumulus clouds.
Masks off. Same eight, same deck, same afternoon.
A large log cabin with a green metal roof and several gable ends, seen across a mown lawn, with four people walking up the gravel drive toward it and wooded hills behind.
The cabin that took them: green roof, three gables, a long yard down to the road.
The cabin at dusk, its tall gable end and deck glowing warm yellow from inside, a car parked in the dark drive in front and deep blue sky above.
Same cabin, end of the day, every window going.
The cabin's open interior with deep red walls, a long pine dining table and chairs in the foreground, a staircase and sitting area beyond, and two people walking through the far doorways.
Inside: a red dining room, a long table, and somebody already moving through it.
Two adults working at a granite kitchen island covered with cutting boards, chopped vegetables, snacks and bowls in a wood-cabinet cabin kitchen.
The kitchen island doing what a kitchen island does.
A man at the stove in the cabin kitchen tipping a pan of scrambled eggs, prep bowls and a cutting board on the counter beside him.
Eggs, at whatever hour eggs happen on a trip like this.
Three adults standing around a gas grill on a cabin deck, one tending it, dense green treetops and a steep wooded slope falling away behind the railing.
The grill on the deck, and the drop-off right behind it.
Three adults sitting at a weathered wooden picnic table on a covered porch with pizza on plates and bottles in front of them, evergreens in the sun beyond.
Three of them at the picnic table under the porch roof, a pizza each and a beer each.
A close selfie of four adults smiling on a deck holding cans and bottles, treetops and a distant blue mountain ridge behind them.
Four grown-ups, four drinks, and the ridge doing the rest.
A large sheet cake with yellow icing shells around the border and Happy Birthday Jagged B piped in red, with an edible photo panel in the center showing a young man in jeans and a jacket standing arms-out over a campfire at night, a blue cooler on the ground beside him.
Jim’s cake, with Jim on it. Jagged B is the rap name stitched on his bowling shirt, and the icing carries an old photograph of him standing over a campfire at night, arms out, from back in the camping years.
A grinning boy in a blue shirt at the cabin dining table raising a fork over a slice of the birthday cake on a plate in front of him.
And Colton, fork already up, going in on a slice with Jim’s face on it.
A cabin games room with an air hockey table in the foreground and a long shuffleboard table against the far wall, a man bending over the shuffleboard beside a bright window.
The games room: air hockey at one end, shuffleboard at the other.
Two children and an adult playing air hockey on a table in a bright cabin room with windows and a glass door behind them.
Air hockey, contested.
A boy in a blue shirt holding a paddle at one end of a yellow and black ping pong table set up inside a garage, an adult returning at the far end.
And a ping pong table in the garage, because the weather doesn't always cooperate.
A person in a blue inflatable tyrannosaurus costume standing on a cabin floor beside the stone fireplace, with a second person in a purple costume on the staircase behind.
At some point two inflatable tyrannosaurs squared off in the living room. This is not explained either.
A hot tub on a covered cabin deck erupting with a huge mound of white foam that has spilled out over the sides and across the decking, children watching from the edge.
Somebody put soap in the hot tub. The hot tub had opinions.
The foam-covered hot tub again with a child climbing up beside it and another standing at the left, suds spread across the deck boards and a car parked beyond the railing.
It kept going for a while.
Three people walking away from the camera along a gravel road through dense summer woods, sunlight on the trees ahead.
The gravel road, walked most days.
A straight empty gravel road running between walls of green trees under a blue sky with white clouds, three small figures walking up the middle of it.
Nothing coming the other way, which was rather the point that year.
Lanay Zarallo stepping out through a low opening in the cabin wall onto the rain-soaked deck, a drink in one hand and her back leg still raised, wet boards and green woods beyond.
It looks like Lanay is climbing out that window. That can’t be true. Can it?
A fire burning in a round deck fire pit at dusk under the cabin's covered porch, chairs pulled around it and a dark blue mountain ridge on the horizon.
And a fire, every night, with the mountains going dark behind it.
Rode out
  • The Zarallos
  • The Lockards
Sat it out
  • The McElwee
  • The Nardellas
  • The McGregors
2021
Snowshoe, West Virginia
54 photos

After a year that barely happened, everybody came back. The whole crew squeezed onto one deck rail for the group shot, and the class photo went outside: the same lineup that started under the 2016 mantel, five years on and a foot taller apiece. Then they took the mountain apart. A full day in the saddle, from the mounting block to the muddy climb and back down the gravel road; the chairlift up and over the valley, where Gary was found riding down alone, on a chair of his own; the climbing tower; and an afternoon at the pool that was really just the blue slide, over and over, until the grown-ups gave in and had a go themselves.

The full Chuckwagon Gang posed on a wooden cabin deck, adults standing in a back row behind nine children, green mountains and a bright blue sky behind them.
Everybody back, and everybody in the frame.
Nine children lined up along a wooden deck railing under a cabin overhang, forested green mountains behind. Left to right: Colton in a blue Unspeakable tee, Owen in a dragon tee, Mason in a white Etihad soccer shirt, Claire in tie-dye, Vivian with a green shoulder bag, Brook in a black and gold tee, Sam in a Phillies shirt, Ryan in white and Asher in an Ohio tee.
The lineup moved outdoors. Left to right: Colton, Owen, Mason, Claire, Vivian, Brook, Sam, Ryan and Asher.
Two adults and a small child riding a green chairlift high above a forested valley, with ridges receding into haze behind them.
Up the lift, out over the whole valley.
A man and two children riding a chairlift together, one boy in a striped towel raising his arm, wooded mountains behind.
Three to a chair, one hand permanently in the air.
A man and two children on a chairlift approaching the wooden top station platform, green hills beyond.
Coming in over the top station.
Three girls riding a chairlift together over dark spruce woods, laughing, a line of empty chairs stretching away behind them.
And three more behind, all talking at once.
A distant chairlift chair descending over a grassy ski slope and mountain bike trail with a single dark shaggy figure seated in it.
Something is coming down alone.
Gary seated by himself on a chairlift chair in the gray shaggy gorilla suit, one hand on the safety bar, pine woods and a curving dirt bike trail below.
Closer. Still alone. Still not explaining itself.
Gary close up on the chairlift, the gray shaggy gorilla suit sitting upright with arms folded over the bar and feet hanging off the seat, evergreens behind.
Gary. Belted in, arms folded, riding it down like he paid for the ticket.
The nine Chuckwagon Gang children shoulder to shoulder along the deck railing in bright sun. Left to right: Owen in a dragon tee, Asher in an Ohio tee, Claire in tie-dye, Vivian with a green shoulder bag, Brook in a black and gold tee, Mason in a white Etihad soccer shirt, Colton in a blue Unspeakable tee, Ryan in white and Sam in a Phillies shirt.
All nine along the rail, shuffled. Left to right: Owen, Asher, Claire, Vivian, Brook, Mason, Colton, Ryan and Sam.
The same row of nine children along the deck railing from further back, the full length of the sunlit deck visible: Owen, Asher, Claire, Vivian, Brook, Mason, Colton, Ryan and Sam.
Same nine, same order, from further back.
A tall artificial climbing tower with three children partway up different faces on harnesses, Coca-Cola barriers at its base and blue sky behind.
The climbing tower, three up at once.
George McElwee in a gold West Virginia vs All Y'all t-shirt standing in front of dark spruce trees, mouth wide open mid-yell, eyes shut.
George, in the West Virginia vs All Y’all shirt, fully committed to it.
Two adults and four children spread along a rock-lined pond bank through tall grass, several of the children holding fishing rods, still water reflecting them.
Fishing the stone edge of the pond, two grown-ups supervising.
Four people along a grassy pond bank with dense green woods rising behind: a woman standing back in the meadow, a man helping a boy down the rocks, and a girl at the water's edge with a rod.
The far side, where the grass takes over. Still fishing.
A long line of riders on horseback strung out along the far bank of a pond in front of dark spruce woods, seen across flat water.
A whole string of riders came along the far bank while nobody was looking.
A woman in a navy and white striped top mounted on a brown and white paint horse on the gravel, a weathered grey barn with a green metal roof behind her and a red-roofed log building beyond.
The barn, and the first one up.
A girl in a blue helmet sitting on a bay horse beside the open door of a gray barn, purple plastic mounting steps on the gravel below.
Mounting block, purple steps, full concentration.
A man in a straw hat and blue shirt riding a chestnut horse past a weathered barn, a girl in a blue riding helmet watching from the shade and a second adult rider in a white helmet waiting behind him.
Leading out past the bunkhouse in the straw hat.
A girl in a blue helmet mounted on a palomino horse with a pink saddle blanket, in front of a log cabin with a red roof.
Up on the palomino, reins sorted.
The same palomino walking along a gravel track with a young rider aboard, barn and green ridge behind.
The palomino, moving out.
A rider in a black helmet on a chestnut and white paint horse crossing a gravel yard in front of an open-fronted shelter.
Around the ring, getting the feel of it.
A young rider in a white helmet on a dark bay horse in the yard, two men watching from the fence line behind.
And again, on the bay.
A boy in a black helmet and blue shirt sitting on a chestnut and white paint horse on gravel, a purple mounting block behind.
The paint horse, and a rider who has decided this is fine.
A boy in a helmet sitting high on a large black horse in front of a barn with a green metal roof.
The black one, considerably larger than advertised.
A child in a helmet and sunglasses mounted on a dark horse, waiting on the gravel with the barn roofline behind.
Sunglasses on, ready before the guide was.
An adult in a white helmet riding a chestnut horse past a log building with a green metal roof.
One of the grown-ups, also ready.
A man on horseback beside a second chestnut horse, both facing the camera on a gravel track under cloud.
Two horses, one conversation.
A man in a white riding helmet looking down and smiling, a horse's mane just visible at the bottom of the frame.
Helmet on, expectations managed.
A girl sitting up on a wooden fence rail in front of the barn, arms braced, smiling at the camera.
Waiting her turn on the rail.
Riders on horseback setting off along a gravel track past a portable toilet and parked cars, open grass slope beyond.
Out past the lot and onto the track.
Two riders on a paint horse and another mount picking their way along a narrow trail through dense young spruce woods.
Into the spruce.
Riders on horseback climbing a churned muddy section of woodland trail between tall thin trunks.
The muddy bit, taken slowly.
The view forward from horseback along a muddy woodland trail with three riders strung out ahead through the trees.
Single file, nobody hurrying.
A view over a horse's rump along a stony uphill woodland trail, another rider ahead in the trees.
Up the track, from the saddle.
Several riders on horseback spread along a grassy hillside trail with woods behind, seen past a rider in the foreground.
The line, strung out along the hillside.
Two riders coming down a broad grassy track toward the camera, spruce woods on both sides under a blue sky.
Out of the trees and into the open.
A line of riders on horseback crossing a wide grassy meadow under a big sky with scattered cloud.
Across the meadow, small against it.
Riders returning along a gravel road in single file past a wooden fence, cars and a hillside behind.
And back in, single file, at the end of it.
People walking and sitting around a mountain-top swimming pool with lounge chairs, rocks and spruce trees behind.
Poolside, mid-afternoon.
Two men walking along the poolside, one in the gold West Virginia shirt mid-shout, the other in a sun hat and gray shirt.
The West Virginia shirt made it to the pool as well.
A man in the pool with a small boy on his back, both grinning, other swimmers behind them.
In the water, holding on.
The same man and boy in the pool, the boy's arms round his neck, laughing, other children in the water behind.
Still holding on.
A child coming out of the bottom of a curling blue waterslide into the pool in a burst of spray, rocks and shrubs behind.
The blue slide, which took most of the afternoon.
A girl standing in the mouth of the blue waterslide as another child surfaces in the water below.
Landing, and the next one already climbing.
A child lying back in the curve of the blue waterslide, arms wide, coming down toward the pool.
Feet first, arms out.
A child sliding down the blue waterslide into the pool, watched by others standing at the poolside.
Another one down.
A man coming down the blue waterslide on his back, a woman watching from the deck above.
The grown-ups had a go too.
A boy emerging from the waterslide into the pool with a girl already in the water in front of him.
Out the bottom, into the middle of everybody.
A girl coming down the blue waterslide toward the pool with people watching from the poolside.
And again.
A cabin living room with a wooden staircase, several adults sprawled across sofas and armchairs, a low table covered in drinks and games.
The living room at the end of a long day.
Two women in the cabin kitchen laughing at the camera, one holding a bottle of wine and a glass, red walls and a lit television behind.
Kitchen, wine located.
A woman with a daisy tucked behind her ear pouring from a bottle at the kitchen counter.
Pouring, with a flower behind the ear.
A man bending over a fishing rod on the cabin deck while a girl in a pink top watches closely beside him.
Rigging something on the deck, supervised.
2022
Snowshoe, West Virginia
17 photos · 1 clip

Snowshoe again, and the year somebody finally printed the dates on a shirt: 1988 to 2022. The kids got on horses, the lake got a fleet of kayaks and paddleboards, the pool got raided, and the porch did exactly what the porch is for. Somewhere in the middle of it a cake came out with a bow on it.

A view over the rooftops of Snowshoe village to layered blue mountain ridges under a soft cloudy sky, evergreens in the foreground.
Morning over the village, ridge behind ridge behind ridge.
Seven children standing and talking in a tall grassy meadow on a mountaintop, evergreens and blue ridges behind them.
The whole pack turned loose in a meadow at the top.
A man in sunglasses and a Great American Guitar Show t-shirt holding a phone up for a selfie with a girl tucked under his arm, a hazy mountain valley behind them.
Selfie at the overlook, arm already around her.
An older man in a blue shirt shielding his eyes from the sun while talking to a teenage girl at a roadside pull-off, mountains in the distance.
Shading the eyes, settling something important.
A girl in a black snake-print t-shirt holding a blade of grass, her long hair blown sideways across her face by the wind.
Wind up top, doing what wind does to hair.
A boy in a black long-sleeved rash guard with a pineapple graphic standing in a grassy field, looking off to the side.
Rash guard at altitude. No water in sight.
A man in a navy Great American Guitar Show t-shirt with a backpack, one hand raised to shade his eyes, looking upward in a parking lot.
Reading the weather from the parking lot.
A boy in a blue shirt and riding helmet sitting on a brown and white paint horse in front of a stable, blue sky behind.
Up on a paint, reins in hand, entirely unbothered.
A boy in sunglasses, a riding helmet and a blue t-shirt with a hamburger graphic, sitting astride a dark horse.
Sunglasses, helmet, burger shirt. Fully equipped.
A woman in sunglasses and a dark t-shirt riding a palomino horse with a long pale mane, a stable roof behind her.
Aboard the blondest horse on the mountain.
Two men in red kayaks and children on stand-up paddleboards spread across a calm lake, forested shoreline behind.
The lake, one kayak and one paddleboard at a time.
Thirty seconds of the lake, boards going out and a kayak coming in.
Children swimming in a resort pool with a blue water slide and landscaped rock features around the edge.
The pool, and the slide, and no intention of leaving.
Five adults sitting in chairs spread across a wide covered cabin porch with a vaulted wooden ceiling, green trees and a mountain view beyond the railing.
The porch, mid-afternoon, everybody exactly where they want to be.
A woman smiling in a selfie from a porch recliner while a man in a maroon shirt throws a hand sign from his chair, drinks and snacks on the table between them.
Porch selfie, and a salute from the good chair.
Two teenage girls grinning and touching tall glasses of frozen strawberry drinks together in a cabin great room with a stone fireplace behind them.
Two frozen daiquiris, clinked with total ceremony.
Lanay Zarallo handing a small cake topped with a large red bow to her husband Brian in a cabin living room, a table of chips, cups and drinks in the foreground.
The cake comes across the room for Brian, streamers already up.
Brian Zarallo in a gray t-shirt printed with the dates 1988-2022, holding a small cake topped with a large red bow in one hand and a plate of chocolate cake with a fork in the other.
Brian Zarallo, birthday boy. His lands close enough to the trip that the cake comes to the cabin, and the shirt says the rest: 1988 to 2022.
2023
Snowshoe, West Virginia
40 photos · 2 clips

Snowshoe again, and the year the pond gave itself up. Everybody took a rod, the kids out-fished the grown-ups by a mile, and the pool handled whatever daylight was left. Then at dusk the whole crew went up to the top of the mountain, spread blankets on the grass, handed out light-up flower crowns, and waited on the Fourth of July fireworks. Every Snowshoe year ended up on that lawn. One of us went down for a nap out there and got decorated for it. Away from the water it was a creek to wade with red cups issued, a rock overhang big enough to stand under, red efts on the path, a covered bridge that warns you bridges don't talk, and a bunk room somebody sealed off with caution tape.

The back of a maroon Chevrolet Express conversion van in a parking lot, with a West Virginia license plate reading COLADA.
Dina Colada’s van. Say it out loud. The guys went to high school with her when she was Dina Stump, and thirty-some years later she paints faces up at Snowshoe under a name that good. That plate was never going to go unphotographed.
People spread along a gravel causeway beside a pond, several children fishing from the grassy bank while a man reclines in a low camp chair with his rod propped beside him.
The whole bank staked out, rods in the water, one lawn chair fully reclined.
A boy in a gray Jordan t-shirt holding a small fish still attached to his line, a pond and treeline behind him.
First one off the hook, inspected closely.
A blond boy in a maroon long-sleeved shirt smiling and holding his line up so the small fish on the end swings clear of the grass.
Held up for the record, grinning about it.
The same boy in a maroon shirt holding his line up with two small fish hanging from it, a barn and green hills behind him.
Two on one line. Nobody topped it all afternoon.
A girl with long blonde hair blowing across her face, smiling and holding a fishing rod with a small fish on the line, cars parked along the gravel road behind.
Hair everywhere, fish on the line, entirely delighted.
A boy in an American flag t-shirt standing in the grass by the pond, holding up a rod with a small fish on the line.
Stars and stripes and a bluegill.
The boy in the flag t-shirt standing on the grassy bank with his rod bent and a small fish on the line, another child fishing further along the shore.
Back at it, same shirt, same pond, another one on.
A man in an orange t-shirt and glasses working on a fishing line while a smiling girl with braces holds the rod steady beside him.
Rig trouble, solved by committee.
A man in an orange t-shirt and a girl in a gray top standing at the edge of the pond with their backs to the camera, working a fishing rod together.
Casting lesson, backs to the world.
A girl in a dark top standing in tall grass at the edge of a still pond, fishing rod out over the water, seen from behind.
Flat water, long cast, nobody talking.
The same girl leaning over the water at the pond edge, carefully holding a small fish in both hands to release it.
Unhooked and going straight back in.
A child in an Otterbein Soccer t-shirt holding up five fingers and grinning by the pond, another child fishing in the background.
Five, apparently. The count was disputed.
The pool, entered all at once and without discussion.
Families sitting on blankets spread over straw on a lawn at the top of Snowshoe mountain at dusk, light-up flower crowns on several heads, lit lodge buildings and people milling about behind them, all waiting for the Fourth of July fireworks.
Blankets down at the top of the mountain, the village lighting up behind, everybody waiting on the fireworks.
Children and adults sitting on plaid and floral blankets on straw in front of a Snowshoe Bike Park banner at dusk, several wearing glowing LED flower crowns.
Crowns issued. Compliance was total.
Two teenage girls in glowing flower crowns sitting cross-legged on a blue floral blanket at dusk, smiling at the camera, a crowd on the lawn behind them.
Two crowns, one blanket, holding court.
Adults and children sitting on a striped blanket on straw at dusk wearing light-up flower crowns, a bike park sign and camp chairs behind them.
The grown-ups' corner of the lawn.
A group of women and children sitting on blankets on straw at dusk with drinks and a takeaway box between them, wearing glowing flower crowns.
Snacks out, conversation going, light fading.
Children sitting and standing on a red plaid blanket on straw at dusk, adults in camp chairs behind them and a lit building beyond.
The kids' blanket, mid-negotiation.
A man and two children sitting on a blue blanket on the grass beside a yellow and blue snow-making machine at dusk.
Parked beside a snow gun, which in July is just furniture.
Two adults and a child sitting on a blue blanket on a grassy field at dusk, a crowd of people on blankets and camp chairs spread out behind them.
Last of the light. Everybody settled, everybody facing the same way.
He fell asleep on the lawn in a light-up flower crown. The crew documented it rather than waking him.
A white mug printed with a photograph of a group of people standing arm in arm, sitting on a wooden ledge in front of a stone wall.
The crew, printed on a mug, keeping an eye on the place.
Five men standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a tall stone fireplace in the cabin's great room, arms around each other, big windows and a wooded deck behind them.
The guys, five across, in front of the stone fireplace.
Two men standing on the raised stone hearth in front of the same fireplace, one in a tan shirt and one in a black t-shirt and cap.
Two of them held the spot after the others cleared out.
A red covered bridge photographed head-on from the road, its gable sign reading 2005, SHARP'S KISSING BRIDGE, BRIDGES DON'T TALK, with two people standing small in the dark opening of the span.
Sharp's Kissing Bridge, 2005. The sign adds: bridges don't talk.
A huge tilted rock overhang of layered gray stone with two adults standing together on a ledge beneath it, green trees beyond.
The overhang, with two people under it for scale.
A blond child in a white t-shirt standing close against a mossy rock wall, looking off to the side, weathered stone filling the rest of the frame.
Tucked up against the rock face.
Seven children spread across a shallow rocky creek in the woods, most holding red plastic cups, wading and turning over stones.
The creek, worked end to end, red cups issued.
A shallow creek seen from above running between steep green banks toward two large culvert pipes, a child crossing the rocks in the middle of it.
From up on the bank: the creek, the culverts, and one kid picking his way across.
A boy standing in a rocky creek looking at the camera, with several other children and adults spread along the wooded bank upstream behind him.
Downstream, with the rest of the crew working the far bank.
Two small orange-red salamanders, red efts, on damp bare ground among fallen leaves and moss, a boot visible at the bottom edge of the frame.
Two red efts on the path, going about their business.
An aerial view looking down on a gravel lane running beside a mown green lawn and dense woods, with several small figures walking and sitting along it.
From the air: the lane, the lawn, and everybody spread out along it.
A near-vertical aerial view of a gravel lane and grass verge with five people walking across it, long shadows and a bright green lawn.
Straight down. Nobody looked up.
A man helping two children rig a fishing rod on the grass bank of the pond, dark spruce woods across the water behind them.
Rods out at the pond, mid-instruction.
Several children and adults sitting in folding camp chairs on the cabin's covered porch, one wearing a straw sombrero, green woods beyond the railing.
The porch, the camp chairs, and a sombrero nobody has explained.
A boy in a stars-and-stripes shirt standing on the wet deck in front of a woman sitting on the stone step, both laughing.
On the steps, mid-story.
A cabin bunk room with deep red walls, its wooden bunk beds crisscrossed floor to ceiling with yellow CAUTION tape, a football on the carpet.
Somebody sealed the bunk room off with caution tape. The investigation is ongoing.
A person crouched in front of a large open fireplace with a substantial fire burning, seen from behind in silhouette against the flames.
The big fireplace, going properly.
A child sitting in a camp chair holding a long wooden stick into the mouth of an outdoor stone fireplace on the porch.
Outdoor fireplace, one stick, full concentration.
Two people sitting close together at night lit in purple and green by glow sticks and light-up crowns, a lit resort building and a Demaclenko banner behind them.
Same mountain-top night, deeper into it.
2024
Snowshoe, West Virginia
3 photos · 5 clips · more to come

Back at Snowshoe, and the year that mostly lives on video. Nearly all of it is the range: sign in at the counter, safety glasses on, then take turns at the stand while the thrower kicks clays out over the grass. The kids shot. The grown-ups coached and filmed and gave notes nobody asked for.

Inside a wood-panelled range clubhouse, a smiling girl in a pale t-shirt stands holding something small while others check in at a counter, a gun safety rules poster and boxes of ammunition on the shelves behind.
Signing in at the counter, gun safety rules on the wall behind.
A group standing under a timber shooting stand wearing yellow-tinted safety glasses, green woods behind them.
Amber lenses all round. Everybody kitted out under the stand.
Under the sign that says DO NOT LOAD GUN UNTIL IN SHOOTING POSITION, which everyone read twice.
One at the stand, one coaching over her shoulder.
Thrower loaded, clay away, and the whole line watching the arc.
Next up, with a gallery forming behind the stand.
Filming the filming. Somebody has this from three angles.
George leaning back against a wooden fence post with his fist under his chin in a thinker pose, empty ski lift chairs strung across the green mountain behind him at Snowshoe.
George doing his best impression of The Thinker. Or we caught him mid-fart. Who knows. The lift chairs behind him sat still all week and offered no comment.
2025
Oak Hill, West Virginia
no photos yet

South to Oak Hill, down by the New River Gorge, and the first summer in a long while the wagons didn't point at Snowshoe. Nobody has turned up photos from this one yet. They exist. They are on somebody's phone.

No 2025 photos on the record yet. If you have some, send them and this page fills in.
2026
Seven Springs, Pennsylvania
4 photos · more to come

North to the Laurel Highlands, and the first year the wagons crossed into Pennsylvania. Eighteen people under one very large roof, and a covered patio that quietly turned into a card room: chips down the middle of the long table, hand rankings written out on a sheet of paper for anybody who needed them, and fourteen players grinding their way down to one. The first annual Chuckwagon Gang Texas Hold ’em tournament has a champion, and a trophy to prove it.

Five men standing shoulder to shoulder in front of a dry stone retaining wall with green woods and flowering shrubs behind them, arms around each other's shoulders. Left to right: Heath in a pale teal shirt, Shawn in a gray tee, Brian in a black Return of the Mothman t-shirt, Jim in an orange shirt, and George in a dark gray shirt.
The five founders, left to right: Heath, Shawn, Brian, Jim, George. Brian is the one in the Mothman shirt, which, nine years on from the Flash costume, surprises nobody.
An overhead view of ten people, mostly teenagers, seated around a long dark wooden table on a covered stone patio. Poker chips are piled in the middle and a handwritten hand-rankings sheet lies on the table. A stone fireplace and stacked firewood behind them.
Texas Hold ’em on the patio, the whole table in it. Hand rankings written out longhand for anybody who needed them.
Owen Nardella, a grinning blond boy in a black Nike t-shirt, sitting at the poker table with one hand raised, reaching toward a large pile of chips in front of him while two other boys watch from across the table.
Owen Nardella, hands up. That pot is his and he would like it noted. His brother Ryan took the whole tournament.
A teenage boy in a white Nike cap and dark t-shirt smiling behind a gold poker trophy engraved Chuckwagon Gang Texas Hold em Champion, holding up two playing cards, with tall stacks of green and black chips and five community cards spread across the table in front of him.
Ryan Nardella, champion of the first annual Chuckwagon Gang poker tournament, out of a field of fourteen. The eight and the ten are the cards that did it, and the plate on the trophy says the rest.