Walking into a red spruce forest can be described as nothing less than enchanting. The thick canopy shades moss-covered rocks that litter the cool, moist forest floor, while providing habitat for a multitude of rare plants and animals. The smell of evergreen needles and sap fills the air, as a Blackburnian warbler sings above. Nearby, a cold mountain stream filled with native brook trout bubbles.
These rare West Virginia forests not only give us refuge on a sunny hike but provide us with a glimpse of West Virginia's natural history. Virgin red spruce once covered more than 500,000 acres of the mountain landscape here. Unfortunately, aside from Gaudineer Knob and a few other small, isolated stands, most of the red spruce across West Virginia was eliminated during the logging era of the late nineteenth through early twentieth centuries.
Red spruce trees grow on and near the spine of WV’s tallest mountains. These forests are home to endangered species, migrating birds and rare plants. According to historical accounts, WV’s mountains used to have more of these evergreen forests.
