Dolly Sods, West Virginia: bogs, sideways trees, and old bombs hiding in the grass

It’s the mid-Atlantic’s strangest wilderness

Dolly Sods sits on a high plateau in West Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains, and nothing about it looks like it belongs there. The ground is spongy with sphagnum bogs.

Wind-stunted red spruce trees lean sideways. Heath barrens and grassy meadows roll out in every direction, and the whole place feels like you got dropped into northern Canada instead of the mid-Atlantic.

Nearly 50 miles of trails cross more than 17,000 acres of it, and some of what you’ll find along the way is hard to believe.

German homesteaders gave the plateau its name

The “Dolly” comes from Dahle, an 18th-century German family that settled here, and “sods” is the old local word for open mountaintop meadows.

Loggers stripped the plateau bare in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and fire swept through what they left behind, wiping out the original old-growth red spruce.

Then from 1943 to 1944, the U.S. military turned the whole area into an artillery range to train troops for mountain combat in Italy.

Congress finally protected it as wilderness in 1975, and an expansion added more land in 2009.

Sunrise from Bear Rocks reaches into Virginia

Bear Rocks Preserve covers 477 acres on the eastern edge of the plateau, right along the Eastern Continental Divide.

The Nature Conservancy manages it, and the spot draws more photographers than almost anywhere else in West Virginia.

You stand on wind-carved sandstone outcrops and look east across layers of Appalachian ridges all the way to Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park.

A short loop trail, about three-quarters of a mile, takes you through the heath barrens and past the best rock formations. Get there before dawn for the full show.

Nearly 50 miles of trails follow old logging roads

Many of the trails here started as railroad grades and logging roads from the timber days. You can do short day hikes or string together multi-day backpacking loops of 15 miles or more.

The Bear Rocks Trail is one of the easier ones, running about 2.4 miles through open meadows and pine forest with little elevation change. Most trails are unmarked, so download a map before you go.

Stream crossings get tricky after heavy rain, and there’s no way around them.

Red Creek drops into waterfalls and swimming holes

Red Creek cuts through a steep canyon in the middle of the wilderness, and the water drops hard enough to carve out waterfalls and natural pools.

The Red Creek Trail follows it in and is one of the most walked routes here. At the forks, you’ll find two cascades, each about 15 feet high.

If you start from the Laneville Trailhead, the first mile has swimming spots you can reach without much scrambling. This trail runs wetter and muddier than the higher paths, so save it for drier summer months.

Lion’s Head Rock looks exactly like its name

On the southern side of Breathed Mountain, a rock formation sticks out that looks like a lion in profile. You get wide-open views of the surrounding mountains and river valleys from the top.

Reaching it means hiking the Red Creek Trail to the Rocky Point Trail, so this one is better suited for experienced hikers.

Nearby, the Rocky Ridge Trail runs about three miles above 3,900 feet and connects with the Blackbird Knob Trail, so you can build longer loops if you want a full day on the ridge.

Wild blueberries grow chest-high on the bogs

Acidic soil and poor drainage have turned the high plateau into a patchwork of sphagnum bogs and heath barrens. Cranberries grow in the floating moss, and so do sundew plants that eat insects.

The higher ground is thick with azaleas, mountain laurel, rhododendron, and blueberries, all growing chest-high or shorter. From May through July, they bloom in waves of color across the open terrain.

You can pick wild blueberries, huckleberries, and cranberries for yourself, though commercial picking is not allowed.

Snowshoe hares live here at their southern limit

Black bears, white-tailed deer, beavers, coyotes, and bobcats all move through this wilderness. The snowshoe hare, a species you’d normally find in Canada or Alaska, hangs on here near the very bottom of its range.

The Cheat Mountain salamander, a federally threatened species, turns up now and then in the preserve. Northern saw-whet owls, another animal more at home in boreal forests, call from the spruce at night.

Watch for beaver dams along the creeks and trails as you hike through.

A bird banding station has run here since 1958

The Allegheny Front Migration Observatory sits near the Red Creek Campground and has operated since 1958, making it the oldest continuously running bird banding station in North America.

Volunteers staff it entirely, and it’s free and open to anyone from mid-August to early October. Migrating warblers, thrushes, and raptors follow the Allegheny Front flyway each fall, funneling right through here.

In 2023, volunteers banded more than 2,700 birds across 57 species in a single season. You can walk right up and watch them work.

Rhododendron blooms late June at this altitude

The elevation pushes everything back, so rhododendron doesn’t peak here until late June or early July. The Fisher Spring Run Trail is the one to walk for thick canopies of it on both sides.

Come fall, the show changes entirely. Maples, birch, and blueberry shrubs turn red, orange, and yellow from late September into early October.

The Bear Rocks Trail is a strong pick for fall color because the open ground lets you see it spread across the whole plateau. Huckleberry and blueberry bushes go fiery red against the white quartz-studded rocks.

Unexploded WWII ordnance is still in the ground

Weather shifts fast up here, and freezing temperatures can hit any month of the year. But the bigger surprise is what’s underfoot.

Because the military used this plateau as an artillery range in the 1940s, unexploded ordnance still turns up. Warning signs are posted at every trailhead.

If you see anything suspicious, do not touch it, do not move it, and do not dig near it. Back away the way you came and note the location.

Cell service is mostly nonexistent, so carry a downloaded map, food, water, and layers every time.

Logging stripped it bare, and it grew back

A century ago, this plateau was raw dirt and exposed rock. Loggers had taken everything, and fires burned what was left down to bare ground.

Decades of conservation work, including tree planting and major land purchases, have brought the landscape back. The Nature Conservancy still plants red spruce on Bear Rocks Preserve to reconnect forest patches.

In 2024, they picked up nearly 1,400 new acres east of Bear Rocks to build a wildlife migration corridor. What you walk through today grew from almost nothing.

Explore Dolly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia

If you want to see it for yourself, Dolly Sods sits in the Monongahela National Forest in eastern West Virginia, spread across Grant, Randolph, and Tucker counties.

From Petersburg, follow WV 28/55 south to Jordan Run Road, turn right for one mile to Forest Road 19, then left for six miles to the scenic area.

No entrance fees or permits are needed for day hiking, and you can camp anywhere in the wilderness. The roads to the trailheads are unpaved and rough, so a high-clearance vehicle helps.

Forest Roads 19 and 75 close in winter and reopen depending on snow and conditions.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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