|
The Dolly Sods Wilderness is a Federal wilderness area in the Allegheny Mountains in West Virginia, in the Monongahela National Forest. It ranges from the top of a mountain ridge on the Allegheny Front at around 4,000 feet altitude (about 1200 meters altitude) to the outlet of Red Creek on the west side at about 2,700 feet altitude (about 820 meters). The highest point in this immediate area is Mount Porte Crayon, at 4,770 feet (1,454 meters), in Flatrock-Roaring Plains.
Most of the area of Dolly Sods is drained by Red Creek, which flows in the Dry Fork River, then the Cheat River, then the Monongahela River, which is a tributary of the Ohio River. Drainage on the east side of the ridge crest flows into the upper waters of the Potomac River; thus, the Allegheny crest in this location is on the Eastern Continental Divide.
The Dolly Sods Wilderness is only part of the area known as Dolly Sods. The northern part of the area is a backcountry access area, though not designated wilderness. This area features overlooks and the Red Creek campground.
Dolly Sods is bordered by a Forest Service road on the south side, and on the south side of the road is the adjoining Flatrock-Roaring Plains area (which is drained by the South Fork of Red Creek). The north end of the Federal land at Dolly Sods is bordered by the Bear Rocks Nature Preserve, owned by The Nature Conservancy.
Most of Dolly Sods is in Tucker County. Small parts of Dolly Sods are also in Randolph and Grant Counties.
The name Dolly Sods derives from the family name Dahle, a German family who cleared and farmed the land. The sods refers to the many boggy areas.
The extensive high plains areas in Dolly Sods and Flatrock-Roaring Plains were once mostly covered by dense, ancient red spruce forest. The complete clearcut of this ecologically fragile area, followed by extensive wildfires and overgrazing, as well as the ecological stresses of the altitude, have prevented quick regeneration of the forest. Today, there are patches of recovering spruce forest amid a matrix of a heath-type environment, with many blueberry and huckleberry bushes.
The whole area might be considered quite "ericacious" since it is largely colonized by various members of the heath family, Ericaceae: blueberry and cranberry (Vaccinium), huckleberry (Gaylussacia), azalea and rhododendron (both in the Rhododendron genus), mountain laurel (Kalmia), and teaberry (or wintergreen, Gaultheria).
Dolly Sods is particularly popular during mid-summer with people who go there to pick blueberries and huckleberries.
This whole area features a number of hiking trails, including:
- Dolly Sods
- Wildlife Trail
- Rohrbaugh Plains Trail
- Red Creek Trail
- Fisher Spring Run Trail
- Flatrock-Roaring Plains
- South Prong Trail
- Boars Nest Trail
- Roaring Plains Trail
The Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area is adjacent to Dolly Sods-Flatrock-Roaring Plains on the east and the south.
| 
