Stadium Woods is an approximately 15-acre wooded section found adjacent to the east side of Lane Stadium on the Virginia Tech campus. It is approximately a rectangle 2000 feet long (running north/south) and 300 feet wide (Figure 1). The area is heavily wooded, with numerous white oak (Quercus albaL.) trees over 36 inches in [...]]]>

Stadium Woods is an approximately 15-acre wooded section found adjacent to the east side of Lane Stadium on the Virginia Tech campus. It is approximately a rectangle 2000 feet long (running north/south) and 300 feet wide (Figure 1). The area is heavily wooded, with numerous white oak (Quercus albaL.) trees over 36 inches in diameter at breast height (dbh).

The age structure of the area is an unbalanced, uneven-aged stand with a large amount of coarse woody debris and standing snags indicative of old-growth forest (Figure 2 and 3) (Oliver and Larson, 1996). There are approximately 450 trees per acre over 4 inches in dbh. Each acre contains three to five white oak trees over 250 years old, and these large trees make up a significant percentage of the overstory. In all of Stadium Woods, there are 56 trees in total (including 46 white oaks) over 3 feet in dbh (two are large standing dead snags).

via Save Stadium Woods | About.

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• Upcoming Guest Alert: Stadium Woods to be Featured on ‘The Colbert Report’(colbertnewshub.com)

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Dan has a blog: Dan Traveling. Go check it out and subscribe to his YouTube channel.

If you are not familiar with Mabry Mill, here’s what [...]]]>

I was reading through my email this morning and saw a link to video from Dan Traveling. From that link I went to this video about Mabry Mill…

Dan has a blog: Dan Traveling. Go check it out and subscribe to his YouTube channel.

If you are not familiar with Mabry Mill, here’s what Wikipedia has to say…

Mabry Mill is a watermill located at milepost 176.2 of Blue Ridge Parkway in Floyd County, Virginia. It is a tourist attraction mainly for the picturesque views of the mill itself. A short trail around the mill connects historical exhibits about life in rural Virginia. The trail allows visitors to view the gristmill, sawmill, and blacksmith shop.

Mabry Mill was built by Edwin Boston Mabry E.B. Mabry. E.B. Mabry returned to Floyd County in 1903 and began the construction of the mill. It was first a blacksmith and wheelwright shop, then became a sawmill. By 1905 it was in operation as a gristmill. By 1910 the front part of the mill was completed and included a lathe for turning out wheel hubs, a tongue and groove lathe, a planer and a jig-saw. Between 1905 and 1914 E.B. Mabry bought adjacent tracts of land, mostly for the purpose of acquiring more water power.

During peak seasons, demonstrations of crafts are given by National Park Service volunteers at Mabry Mill.

via Mabry Mill – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Elizabeth Hunter had this to say about the original owners of the mill in Blue Ridge Country in July of 2004…

…Or, Giving Lizzie Mabry Her Due

About 3 million people a year visit the beautiful spot at Blue Ridge Parkway milepost 176.2, where nearly 100 years ago a strong, hard-working couple came to live and make themselves a life on the land. These days at Mabry Mill there’s not much evidence of Ed and Lizzie Mabry, who were both born soon after the Civil War.

via The Mabrys of Mabry Mill – Favorite Articles – Archive.

I took this shot when Sherry and I were in Virginia in the fall of 2010…

Planning for the seven-mile long trail, which follows the roadbed of the now defunct railway, has been a real community effort for organizations [...]]]>

After more than 15 years of planning, raising money and construction, the Virginia Blue Ridge Railway Trail Project is nearly complete. It runs along the Piney River in Amherst and Nelson counties.

Planning for the seven-mile long trail, which follows the roadbed of the now defunct railway, has been a real community effort for organizations in both counties.

More than that, the first phase of the trail, four miles long, has become a tourist attraction, according to Stephen Martin, one of the organizers of the trail project and a member of the Virginia Blue Ridge Trail Foundation board.

“It’s a wonderful facility for the citizens of the counties, but above that it’s a great tourist attraction,” he said recently. People come from all over the state to use the trail for biking, horseback riding, walking and running. The trail also provides a destination for school nature walks and hosts fishing exhibits and a mini-triathlon.

The Virginia Blue Ridge Railroad was created in 1915 to transport chestnut logs out of the mountains. It closed in 1981.

via Completing Trail a Credit to Its Fans | The News & Advance.

Both Shenandoah and the Blue Ridge Parkway straddle the eastern-most “front range” of the Appalachians. That can mean that most of the snow from the region’s storms falls on more westerly ridges West Virginia peaks can receive nearly 200 inches of snow!.

via Winter: A “Secret Season” in the South’s Loftiest National [...]]]>

Shenandoah National Park

Both Shenandoah and the Blue Ridge Parkway straddle the eastern-most “front range” of the Appalachians. That can mean that most of the snow from the region’s storms falls on more westerly ridges West Virginia peaks can receive nearly 200 inches of snow!.

via Winter: A “Secret Season” in the South’s Loftiest National Parks | National Parks Traveler.