10,000,000 Acre Forest… Gone

I’d like to share some facts about our precious forest that may shock you. Here is a little history I dug up about the ugly side of deforestation.

Before 1750, over 10,000,000 acres of virgin forest existed in the State of West Virginia. George Washington wrote in his journal while traveling along the Kanawa River, "Just as we came to the hills, we met with a Sycamore of a most extraordinary size, it measuring three feet from the ground, forty-five feet round, lacking two inches; and not fifty yards away from it was another, thirty-one feet round."

Along with massive trees, extensive undergrowth existed as documented by an account written in 1857 by David Strother:
"The hunters had been dodging the laurel-brakes all day. They had stories of men who had spent days in them, wandering in circles, and who had finally perished from starvation. Some of these brakes extend for many miles, and are so dense that even the deer cannot pass except by finding the thinnest places. Ascending the stump of a riven hemlock, a striking picture presented itself.

Get with the Picture

Most families seem to have one person that ends up taking all the photos. Sometimes it’s because you are the best with the camera, and other times it is just because it happens to be one of your favorite hobbies and you just love it. The latter is the case in my family. I will generally be the first one to pick up the camera or video recorder at any opportunity. Because of this, I find that I’m not in the photos as often as I’d like to be. The solution for this is simple, let someone else take some shots or get a tripod. I try and do both.

By letting others take shots it puts a different style in the picture. For example, my 8 yr old son is always

This Photo is Alive

Some of us may never see the value in snapping photos at every opportunity, but for the ones that do, you’ll be very thankful down the road. For me, it’s about capturing the mood of a particular moment that’s most important. If your family and friends pose for every shot, then they will look very similar in every picture you take.
Next time you turn on that camera try and resist the urge to draw attention to yourself by waving your arms frantically and shouting ’over here!!’, or waiting until it’s all smiles all around, instead take a few shots of whatever is happing right now; without warning. I think you will be pleasantly surprised more often than not. I’m not saying each photo will be great, but they will all catch

World's most fearless 8yr old surfer

Best Adventures of 2010

Humpback Rocks

On the Blue Ridge pkwy, at milepost 6, there is a great little spot called Humpback Rocks. There is parking on either side of the parkway here - visitor’s center and old pioneer village is on the west side and trailhead parking for the Humpback Rocks trail is on the east side.

This was part 2 of the Adventure Club’s November 2010 trip “Birds of Prey / Bird’s Eye View”. The first part of the day had been spent touring The Wildlife Center of Virginia, and as neat as that was, it was time to get some hiking in! Humpback Rocks is an outcropping of granite high in the mountains. The trail is only about 8 tenths of a mile long but the elevation gain is over 1000 feet! That’s steep people. Never-the-less, we all made it to the top just fine. The ages on our hike ranged from 8 - 45 yrs old. The view from the rocks was amazing to say the least. I spent a lot of time searching for the best photo spots up there and took lots of shots with the kids. My favorite photo of the trip was this shot of the Adventure Club boys hanging out on the rocks. This picture is somewhat deceiving though, they’re actually laying down on the rocks on about a 45 degree angle so I just angled the camera to create the cliff scene.

After spending 2 hours at the top, just hanging out with great family and friends, we started our decent. Going down this trail proved to be very rough on the knees, but nothing a long drive back home wouldn’t cure.

Birds of prey

In November of 2010 the Adventure Club and I traveled to the mountains for the trip we called, Birds of Prey / Birds Eye View. The plan was to visit the Wildlife Center of Virginia, where we would take a tour of the facilities and get to know some of the birds of prey that they were helping at the time.

The Wildlife Center is located near Waynesboro, Virginia and right off of interstate 64. It was very easy to find. I had called ahead to schedule our tour, but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind a stray visitor from time to time. There was a fee involved for the tour, however, most of the fee went directly to the treatment and care of our native Virginia wildlife so we did not mind at all. First we watched a short video about the Center and the animals they cared for, and afterwards our guide held a general Q&A session. The kids took full advantage of asking some very unique, and down right weird, questions and I think I even saw our poor tour guide blush once or twice. Once we were all educated in the Center’s daily operations we ventured out back to where the birds of prey were housed. The enclosures were kept very tidy and the birds looked very well taken care of, despite their injuries. We learned even more about the Owls, Hawks, Eagles, etc., then it was time to say good-bye. The tour was about two hours in length.

I would recommend visiting The Wildlife Center of Virginia to anyone who may be interested in a career of helping native wildlife, the staff was very helpful and very eager to educate us.

The second part of our day we would spend hiking a nearby trail at Humpback Rocks.