Potomac Highlands

Davis & Thomas

Two former coal and timber towns about two miles apart in Tucker County.

Elkins

The largest town in the Potomac Highlands and the location of Monongahela National Forest headquarters, where forest maps and current road and trail information are available.

Dolly Sods Backpacking Loop

Heath barrens, sphagnum bog, wind-flagged spruce and tannin-dark creeks on a plateau above 4,000 feet.

Canaan Valley Winter Weekend

The most reliable snow belt in the mid-Atlantic, with three downhill areas and a Nordic center within twenty minutes of each other, and two small towns to come off the hill into.

Potomac Highlands Fall Color Tour

Color starts on the ridges in late September and runs downhill through October.

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.

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.

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.

Timberline Mountain

A Canaan Valley ski area with about 1,000 feet of vertical and Salamander, a two-mile top-to-bottom run that is the longest trail in the mid-Atlantic.

White Grass Ski Touring Center

The cultural heart of eastern backcountry Nordic skiing — a groomed and ungroomed network climbing the flank of Cabin Mountain from about 3,200 to over 4,000 feet, run out of a converted farmhouse with a soup-and-woodstove lodge culture that people drive four hours for.

Snowshoe Mountain

The largest ski resort in the mid-Atlantic, built upside-down: the village sits at 4,848 feet on the summit ridge of Cheat Mountain and you ski down from it.

Otter Creek Wilderness

About 20,000 acres of dense second-growth forest in a bowl between Shavers Mountain and McGowan Mountain, drained by Otter Creek.

North Fork Mountain Trail

A 24-mile ridge trail along one of the driest mountains in the eastern United States, running through pine and oak with repeated Tuscarora quartzite outcrops looking down into Germany Valley and across at Seneca Rocks.

Nelson Rocks / NROCKS

Twin parallel quartzite fins in Pendleton County, home to one of the original American via ferratas — a guided cable-and-rung route with a 200-foot suspension bridge strung between the two fins, roughly 150 feet above the ground.

Smoke Hole Canyon

A steep, narrow limestone canyon where the South Branch of the Potomac cuts through Cave Mountain — excellent smallmouth fishing, quiet canoe water at the right levels, dispersed camping, caves in the walls and a nineteenth-century chapel at the upper end.

The Trough

A six-mile gorge on the South Branch of the Potomac between Romney and Moorefield with no road access — reachable only by boat or by the Potomac Eagle excursion train that runs alongside it.

Lost River State Park

A 3,712-acre CCC-era park in Hardy County with cabins, stables and the Cranny Crow Overlook — a rock outcrop at 3,200 feet with a view said to reach into four states.

Blackwater Canyon Trail

Ten miles of former railroad grade from Thomas down the Blackwater Canyon to Hendricks, dropping through hemlock and past waterfalls with the river below.

Kumbrabow State Forest

The highest state forest in West Virginia, 9,474 acres of red spruce and northern hardwood on Rich Mountain, with rustic cabins, native brook trout in Mill Creek and almost no one there.

Laurel Fork Wilderness

Two adjacent wilderness units, North and South, totaling around 12,000 acres along Laurel Fork — a beaver-worked stream valley with meadows, spruce and one of the quietest backpacking experiences in the state.

Sinks of Gandy

A stream cave where Gandy Creek runs underground for roughly three-quarters of a mile through a walkable passage — one of the few caves in the East traditionally crossed on foot end to end.

Stuart Recreation Area

A CCC-built recreation area on the Shavers Fork near Elkins with a campground, picnic shelters and river access — the practical basecamp for the central Monongahela National Forest and the Otter Creek and Cheat Mountain country.

Canaan Valley Resort State Park

The state's only resort park with lift-served downhill skiing, plus a lodge, cabins, a golf course, snow tubing and cross-country trails, sitting on the floor of Canaan Valley beside the national wildlife refuge.

Raven Golf Club at Snowshoe

A mountain course near Snowshoe at around 4,000 feet, laid out across steep terrain with substantial elevation change between holes.

Roaring Plains West Wilderness

6,792 acres of high plateau immediately south of Dolly Sods, running from 3,000 feet on the southern edge to over 4,700 feet at the top of Mount Porte Crayon.

Canaan Mountain Backcountry

The plateau between Davis and Canaan Valley, from 3,100 to 4,145 feet, built around the eight-mile Plantation Trail with a dozen short connectors hanging off it.