WV Trip, 2025, Highland Scenic Highway

 The fog finally lifted, and we were off to drive the Highland Scenic Highway. The Highland Scenic Highway is a 43-mile byway through the Monongahela National Forest. It goes through the Allegheny Mountains, and the highway reaches 4500' at one point. It has several outlooks and numerous trails off of it.

I lost count, but we did at least 5 hikes in the forest from the highway. None were very long, ranging from a couple of miles to 1/4 mile, but I garnered a good step count for the day. We were very pleased with the trails as they were well-maintained, along with everything else along the highway.

We saw a range of colors on the hillsides. Some were filled with bare trees, and others were in a blaze of glory. And when the elevation got above 4000', we saw mostly red spruce (which is green).

We were at 4100 feet here, where we noticed a change in vegetation to almost all spruce.

This was at a lower elevation.

And in between the two, most of the trees were bare.

Below are more stops from our day.

Cranberry Glades are bogs with plants leftover from the last ice age. Many species
found here are usually found much further north in the Arctic tundra area.

We walked the boardwalk through the Glades and heard several
different kinds of birds*, as well as saw lots of cranberry plants.

The Cranberry Mountain Nature Center was closed due to the government shutdown, but we were still able to walk two different interpretive nature trails. One of them had signs for the visually impaired. 

This stop had a trail to three different waterfalls,
 cleverly named Lower, Middle, and Upper Falls.

The Lower Falls

The Middle Falls (The Upper Falls were hidden behind vegetation, so no picture.)

There were 380 steps down to the Lower Falls.

We had lunch along the Williams River Overlook Trail.

The last stop of the day was the Honeycomb Rocks Trail. The pattern in this boulder was formed from erosion-resistant hematite being deposited along cracks in the sandstone. Differential weathering left the hematite and removed the sandstone.

Until next time...

And a bonus picture of pretty leaves, just because.

* The wonderful Merlin app from the Cornell Ornithology Lab identified six different birds in the Cranberry Glades over just a few minutes: American Robin, Dark-eyed Junco, Black-capped Chickadee, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Song Sparrow, and Yellow-rumped Warbler.