Ice Mountain

Ice Mountain, North River Mills, WV

N  R I V E R  M I L L S,  W V

When you take yourself or your car in for a checkup, the experts always find problems, even when you think there are none.  My recent experience at Ice Mountain was much the same…

Ice Mountain in North River Mills, West Virginia is known for the cold air that seeps from its base all year long.  Even in the heart of summer, very cool air continuously vents from the openings in the rocky pile at the bottom of its slopes.  Before electronic refrigeration became common, the locals would come to Ice Mountain to gather its frozen waters for use in lemonade and ice cream.  But Ice Mountain isn’t all about tasty treats.  The steady cool air has provided ideal conditions for certain rare boreal plants to survive here, such as the Appalachian Wood Fern.  As the last glacial period recessed, the vents at Ice Mountain provided the cool temperatures the ferns and other species needed to stand their ground. 

March 30th, 2016 was my third visit to Ice Mountain.  Each trip has been quite lovely.  Its two trails – one to the sandstone summit and one to the vents – provide a fantastic look at the mountain’s special features.  But when you walk these trails with The Nature Conservancy’s West Virginia Stewardship Manager Mike Powell, he wasn’t seeing things as rose-tinted as me.  His focus, like a physician or mechanic, was properly on what’s not so lovely.  Trained scientist that he is, he pointed out several concerns as we walked both trails.  Invasive plants, tree-killing insects, liability hazards, and sections of the trail that are beyond the property line - these were the flaws he spotted. 

I paid particular attention to Mike’s concerns, since in effect he will be turning some of these over to me.  I’ve agreed to make this my new home preserve for trail maintenance.  It’s the closest one to my house – a mere forty five minute drive.  Every few months I plan on returning to Ice Mountain to help clear its trails and try to address some of Mike’s other concerns with the property.  I’m just one man, but I’ll do what I can.

This visit was not solely about spotting blemishes though.  Several times over the hours we spent together Mike made reference to how beautiful he found the property to be.  Like a good doctor, he balanced the bad news with plenty of good.    

My next visit to Ice Mountain will involve focusing on spotting problems.  I’ll have to remove the rose-tinted glasses.  But I’m certain that, like Mike, I’ll still be able to look past the blemishes and revel in the true beauty of Ice Mountain.  


Location: North River Mills, WV 26704, USA

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 11, 2016 at 3:35 PM

    Ice mountain is a thing? That's totally crazy to me. How cool.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

93: Unfragmented Wildness

Image
  W I N K L E M A N,  A Z Awareness of Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness emerged years ago.   Amazing imagery of a fertile desert oasis burrowed deep into my imagination.   And that to hike the canyon requires a permit, and a willingness to tramp right through its ankle-deep perennial stream, dug even deeper into my imagination.   In 2016 on sabbatical in Arizona, I visited 7B Ranch – a Nature Conservancy (TNC) property acquired in conservation credit swap with a copper mining company.   Property Manager Celeste Andresen led me on a private tour of 7B, but also questioned my judgment.   7B is a mere 45 minutes from Aravaipa.   If coming to this part of Arizona, why not include Aravaipa?   (Apparently, she and her husband were super-hikers, aware of all the best places, so their recommendations should have been heeded.) At the time, I didn’t realize how smart that question was.   Yes, I had considered Aravaipa, but as a solo hiker, I was hes...
Read more

27: What Lies Beneath?

Image
Mill Creek Cave near Blacksburg, Virginia B L A C K S B U R G,  V A I’m following the State of Virginia’s Karst Protection Coordinator up a steep mountainside slope toward a cave opening.  Wil Orndorff is also Virginia’s number one cave expert.  We’re getting closer, but I see nothing that qualifies as an opening big enough for two six-foot-tall, slender and graying guys to slip through.  Wil stops when we reach a granite wall.  We can go no further.  He kicks dead leaves and fallen branches away from a hole in the ground about the width of a five gallon bucket.  About a month ago Wil asked if I wanted to go underground during our tour of Mill Creek Springs Natural Area Preserve , the first of four private preserves I’ll be visiting during my sabbatical - all others will be publicly accessible.  It took about three weeks to respond to his question.  I have never been caving and wasn’t sure how I would respond to the claustrophobic ...
Read more

Quest Completed - The Final Four

Image
How can a dream be realized?  If a dream is seen as a perfectly created material state, it is inevitably doomed to failure.  Only when it is a striving toward an attainable goal can it be achieved.   Reflections from North Country by Sigurd F. Olson L Y N X,  O H I O # 97 – Entomologic Emma Lucy Braun has turned me into an entomologist.   A century ago, Emma became fascinated with an area in southern Ohio where the Appalachians meet the plains of the Midwest.   It’s an overlap of biological diversity, and Emma, who received a PhD in botany and geology from the University of Cincinnati, found this area to be a research haven.   Of special interest were the small prairies in the foothills where wildflowers, butterflies, and other insects flourished.   In her later years, she was instrumental in preserving a particular prairie in Lynx, Ohio.   The Lynx Prairie became the genesis for what has now morphed into the 20,000-acre The Edge of App...
Read more