yes indeed good point
sometimes the subjective or even downright whimsical approach is all
that is available
& why not
if this is in fact the best one can do or try or guess at any point
in time
& indeed several of us have tried this lovely mdvawv tripoint in many
ways & at many times
& it has always come down to extreme guesswork
til today
when i returned at dawn for my 7th visit
with the surveyors plats & detailed recovery instructions & even pix
of the state line markers
& because lots of things have changed at the busy highway location
just above the tripoint since the vawv terminal markers were
installed there on both shoulders of the road at ground level in 1997
even all this exquisite detail couldnt prevent me from digging a dry
hole first thru a foot of miscellaneous gravels
hahahahaha
before i actually measured rather than merely counted guardrail posts
depicted in the survey diagram
for i realized only then that a new post must have been installed
since 1997
or the draughtsman had miscounted
so my hole was actually one post too far west
hahahahaha
but then i did finally find the terminal mark under only a couple of
inches of gravel right beside the next post to the east of this one
so i had a point on vawv for the first time
yesss
rather than having to guess at the road seam or the usdi nps marker
or the highway departments concrete prism or various other red
herrings
all of which i can now report with confidence are at least several to
35 feet into west virginia
however
i still needed to find the second marker in order to determine the
precise angle at which to proceed to the river
& tho i again measured & searched & shoveled & moved large rocks that
had since fallen from the cliff
i still couldnt find the second marker after several hours of trying
hahahahaha
the difficulty was that all the recovery instructions were based on
things that had been changed or been paved over etc since they were
written
& the xerox of the photo wasnt suffiently readable either
& traffic was moving by too fast to measure things like the exact
distance from the road centerline etc etc
etc etc
but no need to make excuses either because the survey plat showed me
the correct angle i needed to proceed at was north 33 degrees east
& i was able to project this angle from the marker with a protractor
probably no less accurately than if i had recovered the companion
line of sight marker itself
& then
i actually sighted at this angle
& beheld mdvawv for the first time
& though i couldnt tell at exactly what point on my sight line the
mean low water line that determines both the mdva & mdwv vectors of
this tripoint would cross the sight line
i knew i had the target in view on one of its crosshairs
& could at least now venture a really good guess as to the exact
tripoint position
rather than continue to wonder as before where in all the vastness &
beauty it might actually be hanging out
the line of sight passes right across the tops of 3 prominent rocks
all protruding from the water at this time
first
between the 2 ears of a towering unscalable boulder that looks a bit
like a standing bunny
& then
between the 2 ears of a much lower domelike rock
& finally
across a large flat topped rock barely visible above water
before advancing into a reach of open water
where i gauged mdvawv must lie
wet now
but on the bank in time of drought
& of course i made my pix
& approached the tripoint as close as i safely could
& marked the marker position on the guardrail with black electrical
tape
& the correct angle with a second loop of tape very near the first
so future visitors will have the same data
just remember to look for the 2 vertical black stripes on the
guardrail & you will get all the rest fairly directly
& if anyone can recover the second marker before the next drought
all the better
must yield computer now
more later
--- In
BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "dcupopelilly"
<ronkessler@s...> wrote:
>
> I tried that point in September. For the VA-WV line, I found a 3-
> inch white stripe near the edge of a rock that dropped about three
> feet into the river at about the spot I figured the line to be. No
> idea about where this is relative to the low-water mark, but I
> accepted the point where the line dropped off the rock as the tri-
> point (no actual marker that I could see though).
>
>
> --- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, "acroorca2002" <orc@o...>
> wrote:
> > tho it has just rained for 2 days here
> > i am still taking aim at mdvawv today
> > to at least examine the new alignments etc there against the
> blueprint
> > & behold for the first time the authoritative vawv terminal
sector
> as
> > it descends & reaches into the river toward a still unknown mdvawv
> >
> > & no matter that the true trifinium
> > or low water point on that vawv line
> > can still only be guessed at
> >
> > my try will simply be for a truer class c look
> > & thus a better guess
> > than ever before