National Park Service officials say the New River Gorge National River is one of the largest climbing areas in the eastern U.S. Officials are hosting an event to raise awareness about park climbing rules.
There are 1,400 established rock climbing routes in the New River Gorge National River. As the weather warms up and more people start to take on the outdoors, officials are encouraging safety and proper climbing.
Make sure all of your gear is in good, working condition.
Never climb alone.
Watch for falling rocks and be careful about dropping rocks on people below.
Wear a helmet.
Take drinking water.
Hunting is allowed within this park; wearing blaze orange is recommended during hunting season.
Be able to identify the two species of venomous snakes here, the copperhead and timber rattlesnake. Be careful where you reach. Snakes may hide in crevices in rock faces.
Be able to identify poison ivy.
Open cliffs are very dangerous during a lightning storm; seek safe shelter away from the rim and tall trees.
Leave historical and natural objects undisturbed for the next visitor.
The use of motorized drills is by permit only.
Do not trespass on private property.
Park only in designated parking areas.
Use existing trails whenever possible.
Pets must be on a leash.
Pack it in, pack it out.
The Park Service is hosting an event to help visitors understand rules that apply to climbing activities. Climbers are encouraged to meet at the Canyon Rim Center on Friday 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Instructors are expected to go over climbing rules for the New River Gorge National River and the Gauley River National Recreation Area.
A presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. You can also find National Park Service climbing rules on the National Park Service website.
In Hampshire County West Virginia, there is a small mountain ridge called Ice Mountain. Historical records suggest that, years ago, ice could be found here, even in the heat of summer. I recently visited Ice Mountain to find out if ice could still be spotted, and to check out the rare plant species that have existed here since the last ice age.
The hike begins at the base of Ice Mountain.
Aside from the occasional car, the town of North River Mills is quiet. An old white house, with a wooden porch, is draped in the shade of three sugar maples. Across the street is a red barn that was built in the 1700s.
I’m already dripping with sweat as I enter the forest and begin the hike.
My guides are Rodney Bartgis, who recently retired from the West Virginia Nature Conservancy, and Mike Powell, who now works as the land steward for the Nature Conservancy, a non-profit group that owns Ice Mountain and manages it as a nature preserve.
Visitors are allowed to hike here, but only if they’re accompanied by guides. Several trained volunteers take people on about 125 guided hikes a year.
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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Rodney Bartgis
As we enter the forest, Bartgis points to one recent change to Ice Mountain. Small ferns and other native plants are being crowded out by an invasive species, Japanese stiltgrass.
He says stiltgrass is usually spread when visitors hike off the path, accidentally bringing the plant with them on their shoes or clothes.
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oak fern, one of the rare plants that grows on Ice Mountain
Garlic Mustard, and even tasty wine berries are also invasive.
“I always encourage visitors to Ice Mountain and other places like this to eat as many wine berries as you can,” said Powell.
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Dwarf-dogwood, or bunch berry, another one of the rare plants that grows at Ice Mountain
Powell’s job includes organizing a few events each year to help get rid of some of the invasive plants to the forest.
“They’re just spreading faster than we have the ability to control them.”
And this means the weeds are beginning to creep closer to the part of Ice Mountain where most of the rare plants live.
Deeper into the forest, the canopy of trees grows thicker. Pine trees and rhododendron crowd the edges of the trail. There’s more wildlife too.
As we hike along a creek, ferns, white pine and hemlock trees replace the invasive stiltgrass we saw earlier.
After about ten minutes, we pass our first ice vent. Actually, I feel it before I see it. Beside my leg I feel a breath of cool air, like a refrigerator door is open. Then I see dozens of ice vents that vary in size. Some are as small as my hand. Others I could stick my head into. It’s kind of like a honeycomb, with all these little holes in the hillside rocks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBUUCESehms
I go closer to one of the vents and put my face beside the cold air, and in a flash of inspiration, I put a can of seltzer water a few feet in to cool down.
These ice vents probably formed thousands of years ago, at the end of the most recent ice age. Extreme, repeated temperature fluctuations between seasons likely cracked open the sandstone rocks in this mountain, creating crevices and holes as far down as 50 feet.
Bartgis explains that water there freezes in the winter and it’s so well-insulated that the mountain creates this underground refrigeration effect year-round.
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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One of the ice vents at Ice Mountain
“In the winter water can get down underneath those rocks and gets trapped. And when it’s cold it can freeze. So water is able to move down through the rocks. Cold air can also sink into those rocks.”
Today, you can’t find ice after April or May.
But years ago, it never melted, even in the summer.
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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One of the larger ice vents at Ice Mountain
“So ice mountain was popular as a place for people to come make ice cream at least until the 1920s maybe until the 1930s,” said Bartgis.
As the years go by, Ice Mountain seems to lose its ice earlier and earlier each spring.
“It suggests that we’re seeing change here,” said Powell. “What that change is associated with it could be a couple of different things, but we don’t think we’re seeing ice accumulation in here as much as in the past.”
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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Mike Powell, land steward for the Nature Conservancy
Geologists haven’t decided if climate change is responsible for the declining ice, or if it has something to do with people no longer carving out openings in the ice vents.
Whatever the causes might be, the good news is that rare plants that have lived here for thousands of years are still thriving, and for now, the invasive species like garlic mustard and stiltgrass haven’t moved into this part of the forest.
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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Saint John’s Wort
Just a few feet from the largest ice vent are a handful of rare plants that Bartgis points out.
“This little plant here, some people call it a dwarf dogwood, some people call it a bunch berry. This is one of those northern plants that comes south through the mountains. In West Virginia where you’d normally go to see it would be somewhere like Dolly Sods or Spruce Mountain but here it is growing fairly commonly around these ice vents.”
There’s also wild rose, partridge berry, oak fern, and a weird sounding plant called skunk currant.
But the crowning jewel of Ice Mountain is the twin flower.
“When it’s in bloom, it will have two lovely flowers that dangle. It’s a very pretty plant,” said Bartgis.
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When plants like twin flowers first appeared in this forest, ancient animals lived in these mountains.
“The other things that were living here with the twin flower were cariboo, and muskox, maybe even grizzly bears.”
Bartgis said he loves visiting places like Ice Mountain to see rare plants that mostly only grow in faraway places like Alaska, or Russia, or thousands of years ago.
“I get to see things that otherwise I would have to be 1000 of years away in time or thousands of miles away in distance to see… here in West Virginia.”
Credit Roxy Todd/ WVPB
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The hike back, through rhododendron bushes
Before we head back, I go to check on my can of seltzer water.
The temperature inside the ice vent is in the mid-40s. My water tastes amazing.
Ice Mountain is open to the public, but only by visitors accompanied by a guide. To schedule a tour of Ice Mountain, please call (304) 496-7359, or contact Steve Bailes, a trained guide with the Nature Conservancy.
On September 15-17, the community of North River Mills will host a string band jam.
This story is part of a series, called Hidden Gems of West Virginia, discovering natural wonders and exploring the outdoors. You can hear more from this series later this month on Inside Appalachia.
Hikers now have new grounds to trek with the opening of a trail in Beckley.
WVNS-TV reports the Grey Flat Trails, located behind the Paul Cline Memorial Soccer Field, was recently designed by Gary Moorefield.
Mayor Rob Rappold recognized Moorefield for his volunteer work before hikers took to the trails Sunday afternoon. Moorefield spent his time creating the trail so the community could have a place to explore.
Raleigh County Historical Society President Tom Sopher says he loves learning the history the backyards of Beckley have to offer.
Sopher, who described walking the new trails as peaceful and calm, was one of about 60 hikers who captured its serenity and also got in some exercise.
A small conference center and campground in Jackson County has stirred up plenty of controversy at the statehouse over the past few years.
Members of the West Virginia Board of Education want to get rid of their authority of the Cedar Lakes Conference Center, but state officials aren’t willing to pay the cost to let it go.
This year, lawmakers believe they’ve found a compromise that let’s the board off the hook while keeping Cedar Lakes open for the thousands of kids who attend camps there each year.
House Bill 4351 would transfer the Cedar Lakes Camp and Conference Center from the control of the state Board of Education to the Department of Agriculture. In the House Agriculture Committee Tuesday, the bill was passed out with no debate, but in previous years, things haven’t gone so smoothly.
Cedar Lakes is a 228-acre campground and conference center that’s been around since 1949. It’s used for a variety of things from hiking and fishing to a meeting place for groups like the 4-H.
Since the site was established, it has been supported by the state Board of Education, however, after a 2010 audit, the board found the conference center was costing the state Department of Education more money than it was bringing in and wanted to get rid of it.
Delegate Steve Westfall of Jackson County is the sponsor of House Bill 4351. Cedar Lakes is in his district and two years ago, he attempted to convince the board to keep the conference center open.
“Senator Carmichael and myself went to the State Board of Education and proposed a five year plan to keep it open and to eventually move it from the control of the Education Department,” Westfall said.
The 2015 bill attempted to make Cedar Lakes a non-profit, but it was vetoed. In the governor’s veto message, he said he supported transferring the Cedar Lakes Camp into its own foundation, however, the transfer would create an unexpected increase in separation costs resulting in substantial burden for the taxpayer.
Cedar Lakes employees are all considered state employees and when state workers leave public employment, West Virginia must pay them a separation package. That package includes a dollar amount for their built up vacation time, among other things.
“There’s only about 22, 23 employees at Cedar Lakes, but some of them have been there for 35 years or more, so my intent all along was to protect employees but to protect Cedar Lakes also.”
This year’s bill finds a compromise between the two. It would transfer Cedar Lakes Camp over to the Department of Agriculture, keeping it within the state’s control. Westfall says he thinks the governor will approve it.
“The governor has looked at it, and I think the governor’s okay with it. He doesn’t want to close it either. He’s been to facility and stuff, so it’s great. I think it’s, sometimes you wonder why things happen with the veto of the bill last year, but I think now it’s actually gonna be better for Cedar Lakes.”
House Bill 4351 now moves to the House Education Committee for further consideration.
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy says a record number of thru-hikers have stopped at its visitor center in Harpers Ferry this year.
Thru-hikers are those who walk the entire trail, which runs 2,190 miles from Georgia to Maine.
As of December, the conservancy says 1,385 northbound thru-hikers and 192 southbound thru-hikers passed through the center. The number of northbound hikers was up 9 percent from 2014, while the number of southbound hikers increased by 14 percent.
The conservancy says in a news release that the increase in thru-hikers is partially because of two recent movies depicting hikes on the trail, “A Walk in the Woods” and “Wild.”
Hikers stop in Harpers Ferry to be photographed in front of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s sign outside the visitor center.
Four West Virginia state parks have scheduled New Year’s Day hikes to encourage people to get outdoors.
Participating in 2015 are Kanawha State Forest, Blackwater Falls State Park, Cacapon Resort State Park and Pipestem Resort State Park.
The national First Day Hikes program works to start Americans down on a healthy path in 2015. Last year, more than 27,000 people hiked around 66,000 miles on 885 hikes in state parks across the country.
Massachusetts began offering First Day Hikes in its parks more than 20 years ago, and the National Association of State Park Directors has issued a challenge to other states. Officials say 50 state parks across the country are set to participate.
