Smoke Hole/North Fork Mountain

Places to Visit

• Pike Knob Preserve is located on North Fork Mountain

Coastal plain pine barrens atop Panther Knob.  Midwest prairies nestled within the Smoke Hole canyon.  The southernmost forests of native red pine clothing Pike Knob.  A cave with the largest concentration of wild mammals in the Central Appalachians.  This is a landscape in which surprises seem to lie beyond each ridge.

Certainly this landscape contains some of the most stunning beauty found in our state, from the 11-mile long Smoke Hole gorge along the South Branch of the Potomac, to the dramatic, 4000+-ft. peaks on North Fork Mountain.  Over 120 rare animals, plants and natural communities have been identified in this area, making it one of the richest concentrations of biological diversity in the East.  The variety is compelling, even to the most casual observer.

The prairies and associated cedar glades of the Smoke Hole are the largest in the Central Appalachians.  The prairies support a wealth of species, such as prairie flax and side oats gramma, that are otherwise found west of the Mississippi.  The cedar glades support a number of species restricted to this part of the Appalachians including Smoke Hole bergamot – a lovely, strikingly aromatic mint. 

The high, dry crests of North Fork Mountain support the largest pine barrens of the Central Appalachians—hundreds of acres of gnarled pines dwarfed by the harsh conditions and by thousands of years of recurring wildfires.  The summits also support virgin red pine and spruce forests, dramatic tundra-like communities of boreal plants, and a wonderful wealth of rare Appalachian and boreal species.

The marvels even extend underground, into extensive limestone caves.  Here is a very different world from that of the sunlit surface above.  Bats are the most apparent inhabitants, including 40% of all the endangered Virginia big-eared bats remaining on Earth and the largest colony of endangered Indiana bats left in the East.  One winter gathering of over 100,000 bats of several species constitutes the region’s largest concentration of wild mammals.  Bat guano and other organic debris support an array of invertebrates specially adapted to this bizarre ecosystem.  Having evolved in an eternally dark environment, most are blind and lack pigment.  Many exist nowhere else on Earth.