Description
Covid-19 Update (July 24, 2021)
We ask all visitors to please follow any local restrictions put in place for your safety as well as guidance from the West Virginia Department of Health & Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), including maintaining a distance of at least 6 feet from others (social distancing).
Parking may be limited at many of our preserves. If parking areas are full, or if you find you can’t social distance at any trail or preserve, it may be best to visit the area at another time.
Thank you for helping us in our efforts to protect our visitors’ health and well-being. Together, we can each do our part to stop the spread of COVID-19 so we can continue to do the important work needed in West Virginia.
Storm systems arriving from the Midwest have dropped most of their precipitation immediately to the west, leaving the mountaintop susceptible to drought and fire.
What TNC Is Doing
TNC is working to protect North Fork Mountain through land acquisition, education and restoration efforts. TNC:
- Owns or manages 1,600 acres at its Pike Knob Preserve and nearly 3,000 acres at its Panther Knob Preserve.
- Has acquired 2,000 acres next to Pike Knob Preserve for the Monongahela National Forest.
- Is providing conservation and ecological management expertise to private land owners and public land managers.
- Is controlling non-native, invasive weeds at Pike Knob.
- Is studying the historic and ecological roles of fire at Panther and Pike Knobs.
- Is classifying the ridgetop plant communities and determining their fire histories.
- Is treating hemlock on private lands under conservation easement adjacent to Panther Knob.
- Is adding more protected buffer lands around Panther Knob through Forest Legacy 'working forest' easements with private landowner partners and the Division of Forestry.
- Is supporting the expansion of the red pine forest by allowing seedlings that are coming up in meadow to grow into a young red pine forest – restoring forest to some areas historically cleared for cattle grazing.