Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 7, 1995 TAG: 9505090051
SECTION: DISCOVER NRV PAGE: DNRV-36 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
An admitted map nerd, I've spent a good deal of time driving and hiking to compile a molehill's worth of knowledge on our mountains. It's just a start. But for the newcomer, here's a geographic sampler of the New River Valley and some spots from which to take it all in.
Giles County
Think of Giles as a huge fort with four towering walls and several tight gates. Narrows, where the New River squeezes north between East River and Peters mountains, is the most impressive opening. From there, two huge, meandering walls of mountains protect the county's eastern and western flanks. And a long Appalachian ridge with three names (Walker, Gap and Sinking Creek) in a 25-mile stretch broken by Little Walker Creek and the New River guards the south from Pulaski and Montgomery counties.
From a rock outcrop on the Appalachian Trail above the Wilburn Valley on Sugar Run Mountain in southwest Giles, you can take it all in with a clockwise sweep of view (but you need a truck or car with a high clearance to reach a parking area at Big Horse Gap, about two miles to the north on the trail).
First, there's Pearis Mountain and Angels Rest, which loom above Pearisburg. Then, across the New River, Peters Mountain provides stout defense against West Virginia. Next, just south of Goldbond, the ingloriously named Butt Mountain rises to lofty heights even as two mines burrow deep below it for the nearly pure limestone.
Then, visible from U.S. 460, a series of cliffs known as Barney's Wall hangs above Little Stony Creek and the popular Cascades hiking trail outside Pembroke. From there, a long, bending ridge known as Salt Pond Mountain dominates. Inside it sits Mountain Lake, a rare natural lake believed to have been created up by an ancient slide of sandstone.
Finally, in Giles, there are two more "gates:" to the west into Bland County and the east past Newport and into Craig County. The former, past the crossroads of Virginia 100 and 42 at White Gate, holds my favorite sign: "Welcome to the beautiful Big Walker Creek Valley; Where hundreds live the way millions wish they could." One assumes they weren't thinking of the inmates at the Bland Correctional Center, just a few miles down Virginia 42.
Montgomery County
Driving down Brush Mountain on U.S. 460 into Blacksburg, you can see that the small university town that fuels much of the New River Valley's economy is really a cutting-edge place, at least geographically. It sits at the edge of both a grand divide between watersheds and in a geological transition zone called the valley-and-ridge province between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Appalachian plateau of West Virginia.
The divide between the Roanoke and New rivers - the former flowing to the Atlantic Ocean and the latter to the Gulf of Mexico - creates a grand view east of Blacksburg. You can see it from a car driving down into the Ellett Valley on Harding or Nellies Cave roads. Another great place to stand and observe first one watershed, then the other, is the parking lot beside Blacksburg's public golf course on Graves Avenue.
Notice how it's so much steeper to the east. That's because the Roanoke River has a shorter, steeper and faster trip to the ocean. To the west, the New River has a journey five times as long to sea level. Geologists say the Roanoke River, via erosion, is gradually encroaching upon the much-older New's feeder streams. The North and South Forks of the Roanoke, both of which pass through Montgomery, appear to have been originally in the New's watershed.
Though Brush Mountain north of Blacksburg, Paris and Hightop mountains east of the Ellett Valley and Price Mountain between Blacksburg and Christiansburg all grace Montgomery's scenery, it is Poor Mountain that anchors the county. It's visible for miles and points toward Roanoke, its red-lit towers on the summit a beacon of the night. One great place to view it from the New River watershed is just behind the Comfort Inn off U.S. 460, across from Montgomery Regional Hospital. But a dozen miles away, the ridge is particularly imposing from the "Welcome to Shawsville" sign on U.S. 11/460, heading north from Christiansburg.
Poor Mountain is one of the reasons Shawsville, Elliston and Lafayette seem like a world unto themselves. The drop from the New River watershed to the west, combined with the massive Poor Mountain ridgeline to the east, literally separates those communities from the rest of Montgomery.
Floyd County
Driving out of Christiansburg and into Riner and Floyd, you're leaving the valley and ridge, crossing the Blue Ridge fault and heading into the mountains of the same name. You won't see a dramatic drop again until you cross the crest of the Blue Ridge and pass down into Patrick County and the beginnings of the Piedmont region.
Because it's almost all a high-elevation (for Virginia) plateau, the ridges don't dominate the landscape as much in Floyd County. Sure, there's Willis Ridge, the major mountain you pass on the right halfway between the Little River and the town of Floyd. Then there's Buffalo Mountain, an oddly shaped humpback in the southwest corner of the county.
But the best view of Floyd I've come across is on the hiking trails in the Rocky Knob area, off the Blue Ridge Parkway. The footpath in that area was part of the original Appalachian Trail (until the 1950s), and one of the early hiking shelters is still there, offering spectacular views into the Piedmont.
The great thing about learning mountains is that it's a never-ending process. Pulaski County, for instance, is still fresh territory for me, beyond the highly visible Draper Mountain above the town of Pulaski and Interstate 81.
I like to hit the road with my trusty "Virginia Atlas & Gazetteer," published by the DeLorme Mapping Co., my binoculars and hiking boots. I've also recently come across an interesting book: "Roadside Geology of Virginia," by Keith Frye, published by the Mountain Press Publishing Co. It's available in most local book stores. I've found that many mountain geology and geography enthusiasts seem to keep a copy handy.
Happy viewing.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***