Every organization we link to: local tourism offices, the state and federal agencies that manage the land, the nonprofits and clubs that keep access open, and the universities doing the research.
Bear Rocks Preserve
The northern edge of the Dolly Sods plateau, owned by The Nature Conservancy: bare Pottsville sandstone slabs, one-sided spruce sculpted by prevailing wind, and blueberry heath dropping east into the Allegheny Front with a 3,000-foot view over the Potomac Highlands. The most photographed sunrise in West Virginia.
Know before you go
- Forest Road 75 to Bear Rocks is rough gravel and slow — allow real time
- Wind here is relentless; bring more layers than the forecast suggests
- Blueberry and huckleberry ripen in late summer
What you can do here
Sunrise is what most cameras come for: the sandstone slabs face east over a 3,000-foot drop into the Potomac Highlands, with wind-flagged spruce for foreground. The record calls it the most photographed sunrise in the state. Forest Road 75 is rough gravel and slow, so leave far more time than the distance suggests if you want to be set up before light.
Overlooks here
Local organizations
Walking here is over open ground rather than through forest — bare Pottsville sandstone, blueberry heath and one-sided spruce along the northern edge of the Dolly Sods plateau at about 4,000 feet. Nothing breaks the wind, which the preserve warns is relentless, so carry more layers than the forecast calls for. The Nature Conservancy owns the land; check its rules before you range far.
Overlooks here
Local organizations
At 4,000 feet the habitat is heath barren and wind-stunted spruce, the high-elevation country that in West Virginia holds northern breeding species near the southern edge of their range. May is the peak month statewide. The open ground gives long sightlines, though the constant wind here works against hearing anything.
Overlooks here
Local organizations
Birding across West Virginia →Blueberry and huckleberry ripen across the heath in late summer, and the one-sided spruce record decades of prevailing wind in their shape. Bare Pottsville sandstone and thin plateau soil explain why nothing here resembles the hardwood forest below the Allegheny Front. This is Nature Conservancy ground, so keep off the heath where you can.
Overlooks here
Local organizations
Guides, gear and lodging near Bear Rocks Preserve
Place-level placement for operators within range of this trailhead, put-in or crag.
List your business hereNearby in the Potomac Highlands
Dolly Sods Wilderness
A 17,371-acre federally designated wilderness on a plateau largely above 4,000 feet, containing wind-flagged red spruce, heath barrens, sphagnum bog and exposed rock.
Spruce Knob
At 4,863 feet, the highest point in West Virginia and the high point of the entire Allegheny range.
Seneca Rocks
A 900-foot fin of near-vertical Tuscarora quartzite standing above the North Fork of the South Branch — the most recognizable rock formation in the eastern United States and the only true summit in the East that can only be reached by technical climbing.
Seneca Creek Backcountry
A network of trails below Spruce Knob following Seneca Creek through spruce and northern hardwood to a series of waterfalls, the largest around 20 feet.
Blackwater Falls State Park
A 57-foot falls where the Blackwater River drops into an eight-mile canyon, its water stained amber by hemlock and spruce tannins.
Canaan Valley
The highest large valley east of the Mississippi, at about 3,200 feet — a 14-mile-long bowl of wetland, bog, beaver meadow and northern hardwood that behaves climatically like central Canada.
West Virginia has roughly 1.5 million acres of public land and a handful of places that carry almost all of the attention. The consequence is that a great deal of very good ground sits nearly empty, usually for one of three reasons: nobody has heard of it, the road in is gated or rough, or it is undeveloped and has nothing to advertise. Those are the places below — of them across regions.