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Spring Turkey Season Starts This Weekend

The regular season opens statewide April 17, and goes for five weeks until May 21.

The state’s spring turkey season kicks off with a two-day youth season Saturday, April 15 and Sunday, April 16, giving young hunters a chance to take part in the excitement.

Youth hunters must be at least 8 years old and less than 18 years old.

The regular season opens statewide April 17 and goes for five weeks until May 21.

All hunters 15 and older are required to have a valid West Virginia hunting license.

There is a season bag limit of one bearded turkey per day, two all season for all ages.

For more information on hunting requirements and limits, be sure to check the current Hunting and Trapping Regulations from the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

The DNR calls wild turkeys one of the most wary game birds in North America, notorious for their keen senses and elusive nature, making them a challenging quarry for even the most experienced hunters.

All residents are advised by the DNR that the spring turkey season is the perfect opportunity to combine multiple outdoor activities into a single day’s trip including hunting, fishing, hiking or taking in the natural beauty of the landscape.

New River Gorge National River Gets National Grant to Promote Outdoor Recreation

The New River Gorge National River in West Virginia will receive a grant to bolster a partnership aimed at getting local residents involved in recreational activities.

The National Park Foundation on Wednesday announced 20 grants to enhance the country’s national trails and wild and scenic rivers. The grants totaling more than $500,000 are in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Trails and National Wild and Scenic Rivers systems.

In southern West Virginia, the Get Active in the Park program provides free, beginner-level instruction in outdoor activities such as yoga, rock climbing, paddle boarding, hiking and fly fishing.

The program is a partnership between the nonprofit group Active Southern West Virginia and the region’s national parks.

Outside in Appalachia Part 1

A little over a decade ago, a psychologist named Richard Louv coined the term “Nature Deficit Disorder,” meaning that human beings, especially children, are spending less time outdoors, to the detriment of their mental and physical health. It’s not an officially recognized medical disorder. But health professionals from various fields are embracing the idea that America’s shift toward sedentary, indoor lifestyles is harming our health.

“Well, research has shown that people feel better, it improves our mood! Nature is a healer,” said Scott Geller, a professor of psychology at Virginia Tech. For the last 50 years he’s been studying how psychology and the environment interact.

“It’s been shown clearly that nature, that the environment, increases subjective well-being. Now, if we’re stuck behind the television, indoors and we’re sitting on that couch — couch potatoes — we’re missing opportunities to get up and moving. And, of course, there’s a health benefit to moving, and the environment naturally inspires us — once we’re out there — to keep moving.”

Ross Arena is a professor of physical therapy at the University of Ilinois Chicago who focuses on something called “healthy living medicine,” which is using exercise and nutrition to prevent and treat chronic disease with a much greater community focus. He advocates “moving away from the hospital and more towards where people live, work and go to school.”

Arena said the health benefits of being active are not reserved for people training for marathons or gym rats.

“Movement is highly beneficial,” he said. “Instead of ‘let’s talk about exercise,’ let’s talk about movement and actually thinking about three facets of that: so your steps per day, your sitting time, and then participation in a structured exercise program. And all of those are independently valuable. When you synergize them together, they’re even more valuable.”

And the easiest way to do that, he said, is just to go outside. Walk around your block, do yoga on the back porch, visit the local park. And bring the whole family.

“Like a lot of behaviors, what you practice within the families, tends to be what happens,” said Earle Chambers, a researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

“So your dietary choices are reflective of whoever is the one making the meals in your home, and it’s the same thing with activity. If you don’t live in a family that’s particularly active, then you tend to not be as active too,” Chambers said.

Familial inactivity has resulted in an all-time high of childhood obesity, diabetes, hypertension and asthma. Despite a myriad of outdoor recreation resources, Appalachia in particular has shockingly high numbers of these diseases – and so far, they’re continuing to rise.

For addictions researcher Peter Thanos, getting outside and exercising could be a tool for preventing and treating addiction.

“Chronic aerobic exercise had an impact on brain chemistry in a way that is consistent with what we know in terms of decreasing vulnerability to drug abuse,” he said. “And this was something that was very, very profound.”

Thanos is referring to research published last month in the online journal of the American College of Sports Medicine.

“Because aerobic exercise has this effect at essentially restoring the balance of brain chemicals in the brain,” he said. “That same imbalance is what’s also found for individuals who have either a vulnerability or dependency for opioids or other drugs.”

Basically, the experts agree – getting outside, being active and enjoying nature are all hugely beneficial to human health. So this summer, I’m heading into nature and inviting you to come along as we find hidden gems, hiking favorites and rivers worth exploring, Outside, in Appalachia.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Marshall Health, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

Rare Orchids Abound in W.Va.'s Wild Places

If you live in West Virginia, chances are, you’ve driven past a cluster of wild pink or white orchids just off the side of a curvy road. Some of the best opportunities in the country to find them are located along our rural mountain hillsides.

A few years ago, two orchid enthusiasts discovered a rare and previously undiscovered species, known as Platanthera shriveri, or Shriver’s Purple Frilly Orchid.

I was sworn to secrecy not to reveal the location of our hike before Scott Shriver and Clete Smith agreed to take me to see one of the rare orchids they discovered. After all, poachers have been known to dig them up. Let’s just say we took a little walk along a road to a steep hillside, in the misty mountains of Pocahontas County.

The Highland Scenic Highway in Pocohantas County

Shriver is a retired high school biology teacher from Pittsburgh, who helped discover the Purple Frilly Orchid, and named it after his dad.

“He was my best friend for 30 years,” Shriver said. “I wanted to honor him so I asked if we could name it after him. He died in 2008, we published in 2008, so it was a kind of a tribute to him.”

Clete Smith and Scott Shriver, who discovered the Purple Frilly Orchid. Shriver has a tattoo of the orchid he helped discover.

A report about the new species was published in the North American Native Orchid Journal. But aside from a few orchid fans and scientists, few people heard about the discovery.

“As a teacher, kids would say, ‘How much money did you get? How famous are you?'” Shriver recalled. “There’s no money, there’s no fame,” he told his students.

Each plant can have up to 100 flowers on its stalk. Some of the flowers are no bigger than a nickel or a quarter. “So a lot of people would be excited to see that and hopefully they wouldn’t pick it,” Shriver said.

The Hunt

The ground is spongy and mossy under our feet as we make our way down a hillside covered in green ferns and tall grass. Scott and Smith are on the hunt for the orchid they discovered.

Then, we spot them. Each of the plants have lots of little purple flowers, each shaped like an orchid, with a kind of a funny hat on top, and a frilly, ornamental skirt at its base.

And then, laughing with giddiness, Smith points out a hybrid plant they didn’t expect to find. I peer close to see a green orchid, right next to a very rare, hybrid version. Basically, Shriver explains, they think the green orchid crossed with the Purple Frilly they discovered to make a sort of orchid love child that has this cool green and purple color combination.

For these two orchid fans, this is like Christmas in July.

“It’s a treasure hunt. There’s no doubt, it’s treasure,” said Shriver.

A green fringed orchid that reproduced with the purple frilly to create a a rare orchid hybrid

Shriver and Smith are part of an informal group of orchid hobbyists who scour the country looking for these wild flowers.

“We just fell in love with orchids, and we hunted them from Alaska to Newfoundland. I mean North American orchids were our hobby. Some people play golf, we did North American Orchids. So we were just orchid crazy,” said Shriver.

Wild West Virginian Orchid Hunting Grounds

West Virginia has a really good climate and geography for orchids, making it a secret hotbed for finding a lot of different types of flowers. So Smith and Shriver began making regular trips to visit. They even made a goal to try to see an orchid in every county in the state. And they did.

“I know there’s been a lot of cutting of forests, there’s been a lot of coal mining, there’s been a lot of damage that has occurred here, but there are a lot of little nooks and crannies that still exist here that are still pristine,” Shriver said.

Scott Shriver talking with reporter Roxy Todd about the orchid he helped discover in W.Va.

Shriver said some of the best places to see orchids are in the Monongahela National Forest — 300,000 acres of which are located in Pocahontas County. “And so we were drawn to Pocahontas County, which is the pinnacle of orchids because you can see 18 species of orchids in one day, in bloom!”

Plantanther shriveri, also known as a pale frilly orchid

Orchids even grow in places where you may not think to see them. Some orchids like those pristine niches, other orchids like disturbed area.

“Old strip mines are one of our favorite places to go orchid hunting,” said Shriver. “Not a strip mine that ended two years ago, but one that ended 30 years ago and is recovering by succession. Orchids are going to move into those areas.”

“So West Virginia’s just a great place,” Shriver added. “Pennsylvania’s good, West Virginia’s probably better. And so we spend a lot of time here.”

Neither Shriver nor Smith are professional botanists, but they insist that anyone with an interest in exploring the outdoors can make big discoveries, especially in remote Appalachia

“I think there are things in the nooks and crannies of West Virginia that nobody has ever seen before and that’s exciting. When you’re here, it’s kind of like you’ve escaped urban and suburban areas and a lot of places in West Virginia. It’s wild,” said Shriver.

Threats

But this abundantly diverse wildness is fragile. Deer are a threat to orchids, and there are poachers who steal them to grow in greenhouses or to plant in their backyards.

Recently, an endangered orchid that grows on Cheat Mountain was nearly wiped out by poachers. So I assure Shriver and Smith, their secret is safe with me. If you want to find an orchid, you’ll have to go driving out to the mountains yourself.

Keep your eyes peeled though, because you never know what you’ll find on the back roads of West Virginia.

Nature's Icebox in W.Va.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.”

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.

Boy Scout Jamboree Begins after Years of Preparation

Tens of thousands of boy scouts are making their way to southern West Virginia Wednesday for the start of their national jamboree, but preparations began long before a single scout sets foot on site.

Planning for the 2017 Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree began almost four years ago, immediately following the first jamboree held at the Summit Bechtel National Reserve.

The reserve is situated on 14,000 acres in Fayette County between Oak Hill and Mt. Hope, next to the New River Gorge National River.

Tuesday, hundreds of volunteers were already in place, constructing the main stage at the amphitheater, setting up supply tents and learning their roles for the 10-day event. Those volunteers include military men and women from almost every branch, and members of the West Virginia National Guard.

Sgt. Zoe Morris said 600 guard members are using the event as a replacement for their annual training days, working with the Department of Defense and state and local officials on the National Jamboree Joint Task Force.

“It builds our experience so that if anything happened like the flood or the water crisis, we already have experience working with those other agencies,” Morris said.

While on site, the estimated 30,000 boy scouts will participate in a variety of activities, including hiking, ziplining and whitewater rafting. They’ll set up their own tents, cook their own meals, and learn some valuable lessons.

A base camp at the 2017 National Boy Scout Jamboree.

“I come from Los Angeles, but for even some kids that are going to come out of south L.A. that have never been to a camp before or never really spent 10 days in a tent, I mean they are life changing experiences,” Glenn Ault, who leads the national administrative group as a volunteer, said.

Jamboree Director Mike Myers says scouts will spend their time doing more than just mountain biking and fishing. They will volunteer some 100,000 hours of community service in 9 West Virginia counties during their time in the state.

“This is part of who we are and in our DNA, so to speak, is to do a good turn daily and help other people,” Myers said.

The Governor’s Office estimates those volunteer projects will generate some $7 million of economic impact for the state.

The Summit Bechtel Reserve itself hasn’t been without controversy, though. Reuters reported that the initially budgeted $176 million project quickly blossomed to $439 million in 2015, causing some financial strain on the national nonprofit.

The year before, West Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing the scouts to maintain their nonprofit, tax exempt status while renting out the facility. A representative of the site says so far, the Girl Scouts have also used the reserve for their own camps.

Editor’s Note: This story originally placed the Summit Bechtel Reserve between Oak Hill and Fayetteville, but has been updated to reflect that it is in the Mt. Hope area.