Places > United States > West Virginia > Dry Fork Park
Dolly Sods Wilderness
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Dolly Sods is a rocky, high-altitude plateau with sweeping vistas and lifeforms normally found much farther north in Canada. The distinctive landscape of "the Sods" is characterized by stunted ("flaggedâ€) trees, wind-carved boulders, heath barrens, grassy meadows created in the last century by logging and fires, and sphagnum bogs that are much older.
The name derives from an 18th century German homesteading family ”the Dahles” and a local term for an open mountaintop meadow - a "sods".
Recreation
Camping is allowed in Dolly Sods, but visitors are cautioned to "leave no trace". All off-road motorized vehicles and any cutting of live vegetation or camping near roads (aside from Red Creek Campground) are forbidden. Hunting and fishing within state law are permitted. Dolly Sods is particularly popular during mid-summer with people who go there to pick blueberries and huckleberries. From May through late June, extensive and spectacular displays of mountain laurel in flower may be viewed. Due to severe winter weather, FS Rt 75, flanking the eastern side of Dolly Sods, is typically closed to vehicles from January 1 to April 15.
There is an extensive network of hiking trails in the Wilderness totalling 47 miles. Some follow old logging railroad grades, and occasionally you see some remnants of railroad ties and metal equipment. Until a 2004 remapping, the USGS and USFS maps of the trails were inaccurate so a mapping site provides good maps with GPS data. Trails include:
* Dolly Sods
o Wildlife Trail
o Rohrbaugh Plains Trail
o Red Creek Trail
o Fisher Spring Run Trail
o Big Stonecoal Trail
o Little Stonecoal Trail
o Dunkebarger Trail
o Rocky Ridge Trail
o Breathed Mountain Trail
* Dolly Sods North
o Beaver View Trail
o Blackbird Knob Trail
o Bear Rocks Trail
o Raven Ridge Trail
o Dobbin Grade Trail
o Upper Red Creek Trail
* Flatrock-Roaring Plains
o South Prong Trail
o Boars Nest Trail
o Roaring Plains Trail
o Flatrock Run Trail
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