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A photo essay of our
Road Trip to the
Clifftop
2005 Appalachian String Band Music
Festival |
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Please double-click
pictures to enlarge them. |
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 August
3-7, 2005
Armed with all the gear detailed in our FOB
Festival Survival
List, Leslie and Ruth packed Ruth's little Subaru station wagon to
the max and made their way to Fayette County, West Virginia for their
first
Clifftop
experience.
You'll
find our story below but you can hear the wonderful audio report
produced by National Public Radio on Friday night of the festival if you
click
right here. |
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  The
biggest challenge at Clifftop is finding a shady, level camp site.
Folks, from all parts of the country and the world, arrive as much as a
week ahead of time to set up early camp. This year, among over 3,000
attendees, there were people from Canada, France, Alaska, California, New
Mexico, to name just a few of the far-flung locations. Thinking we
were early, arriving about 1:30 pm on Wednesday afternoon, we were blown
away by all the campers already staking out the woods. It looked
full to us --- little did we know! Whether you went up towards the
left to the water tower or down below to your right and into the woods,
for two more days, folks continued to fill the area with tents, tarps,
little campers, vans, tailgate tents and canopies. Large RVs and
campers had their own designated field to the rear of the staging area --
no generators allowed up there. It would take a shoehorn to
squeeze in another tent, yet still they came.
   A
little daunted by the congestion, we drove back to the ticket gate
and set up camp in the field to the left of it as you drove up the hill
towards the lodge. This field is used mainly for overflow RVs and
campers that want to use generators. We found a nice level campsite
against the tree line that was shady during much of the day. The
organizers provide a shuttle that drives up the little hill to the lodge,
so this site proved to be a good choice for us for our virgin Clifftop
adventure.
What we
soon learned, was that, at night, that amazingly congested tent city
turned into something magical. There is no electricity at the sites
so folks lit up the night with lanterns, flashlights, lit flamingos,
globes, candles, tiki lights, paper orbs and battery-run ropes of lights
in many shapes, including our favorite -- dragonflies. Old time
music filled the air as jam sessions, small and large, played under the
twinkling, muted lights. People played, danced, visited, watched as
they picked their way through the trees. It was really rather lovely
-- a Brigadoon village, created just for a while until, at week's
end, it faded back into the mists for another year. It is hard to
describe to you just how pretty it was at night ...
  Our
cordial camp site neighbor was Lester, a mandolin and standup bass player
from the Abundant
Dawn Community in Floyd, VA. Lester began our Clifftop
initiation by asking us to play. He also gave Ruth her very first
bass lesson. Our endlessly, supportive, fiddling friend Howard,
continued our initiation by pulling us into jams and making sure to play a
few tunes we knew. Thanks Howard and Lester! You're both the
best.
   
The
contests -- fiddle, banjo, old time string band, non-traditional band and
flatfoot dancing -- were awesome. Hundreds of competitors challenged
the judges to narrow down the field to five finalists in each category.
Later in the evening, the finalists played two tunes for the final
placing. The judges for the old time string band competition were
Dave Bing, Marc Payne and Gail Gillespie and hats off to them. What
a job! Over 60 bands competed in the old time string band contest
alone. The winning band was the Moonshine Monsters (which included
20 yr old Adam Hurt and 17 yr old Jared Nutter). (Click
here to read the contest rules -- it's a pdf file so you'll need the
free
Adobe Reader to access it.)
Besides listening to the best
in live old time music for a week, another treat for us was to see the
faces from the covers of our CD
collections come alive, as we recognized many of our favorite players
competing, jamming and/or watching.
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  The
jamming is why many people come to Clifftop year after year. Jam
sessions are everywhere and play on well into the night and then some.
You'll find them in the woods, on the porch, outside the lodge, in the
fields, under canopies and tarps and near the road. They are large
and small, good and friendly. |
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 There
are planned activities for the whole family. Leslie took time out to
weave a stool seat. There she ran into Jan, a friend from home, and made
the acquaintance of Irene from New Orleans. Ruth took a basket
weaving workshop and there was also bingo, story telling, tie-dying, lasso
spinning, among other activities. |
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  Companion
animals were welcome at Clifftop as long as they were leashed. Lew's
friend, John was accompanied by his 19 year old cat and his Rhodesian
Ridgeback seen here lazing about the camp site after a walk. One our
our favorite four-leggeds was a Bloodhound, named Dixie, who sat regally
on her lawn chair, panhandling for money to buy herself her own
steak. |
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  If
you make the journey next year, don't leave your plastic at home because
there are vendors at Clifftop. Among others were
Cedar
Mountain Banjos,
Fielding
Banjos, Ome Banjos, RM Anderson Instruments, Goldtone,
Smakula Fretted
Instruments, Krack's Fiddle Shop and
Zepp Country
Music. Leslie and Paul made several fruitful visits to the CD
dealer's booth, the Cleff'd Ear from Michigan. There were also
potters, jewelers and a tie-dye booth.
 
Food was simple and adequate.
The dining hall provided enough variety that even vegetarians could find
enough to fill up. We shared a couple of meals with Jim, Paul and
Virginia at the dining hall. For lunches we enjoyed dining from the
two fast-food trucks. One of the trucks sold fried green tomato
sandwiches with plenty of pickles piled on if you asked. Boy they
were good! The other truck offered Indian Tacos made with fry-bread.
That was good, too. Both trucks offered their selections with or
without meat. In the interest of keeping people lively
throughout the week, there was a caffeine truck that offered coffees,
lattes and cappuccinos.
No
doubt about it -- we had fun! We know the organizers were working
hard behind the scene to make it all happen but, on the surface, the the
event seemed seamless. The security crew, ticket sellers, shuttle
drivers and other grounds people were friendly and polite. The
M.C. and stage and competition crew managed all those many players quickly
and efficiently. The sound was fantastic. Although we knew
there were over 3,000 people on the grounds, we never had a feeling that
it was over-crowded and, although we heard there was the occasional line
for the facilities, we personally never experienced it at either showers
or toilets. A nice amenity was hot water in the shower which
never seemed to run cold. Ice was easily available for $2 a
bag and it was nice to have alternative food outlets when we didn't feel
like camp-cooking. We lucked out with fairly decent weather -- hot
in the day and cool at night. Only one thundershower, late Saturday
afternoon, marred our week. But even that cleared up quickly and the
show went on. Thank you Clifftop organizers. We'll be back
next year. |
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