Falls Of Hills Creek

The Falls of Hills Creek roadless area encompasses 6,925 acres across the montane ridges and coves of the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia. The landscape rises from Chestnut Flats at 3,000 feet to Briery Knob and Spruce Mountain, both reaching 4,400 feet, with Point Mountain and Rocky Knob forming intermediate ridgelines. Water originates across these elevations and converges into a complex drainage system: Outlet Spring Creek, Hills Creek, and the North and South Forks of the Cherry River form the primary hydrologic spine, while tributary streams—Bruffey Creek, Bear Run, Darnell Run, Glade Run, Laurel Run, Spruce Run, and Charles Creek—cut through the coves and hollows. This network of flowing water shapes the ecological character of the entire area, carving the steep-sided valleys where the most diverse forest communities develop.

The forest composition shifts with elevation and moisture availability across distinct ecological communities. At higher elevations and on cooler north-facing slopes, Northern Hardwood Forest and High Allegheny Rich Montane Forest dominate, with red spruce and yellow birch forming the canopy alongside sugar maple. In the moist coves where streams flow, the Acidic Cove Forest (Hemlock-Hardwood Type) takes hold, with eastern hemlock and hardwoods creating a dense, shaded environment. The understory throughout these communities includes great rhododendron, striped maple, and hobblebush, while the forest floor supports a rich herbaceous layer: bluebead lily, painted trillium, mountain woodsorrel, and Fraser's sedge. Two federally threatened plants occur here—Virginia spiraea and small whorled pogonia—occupying specific microsites within these cove forests where their narrow ecological requirements are met.

The streams and seeps support specialized aquatic and semi-aquatic fauna. The federally endangered candy darter inhabits the clear, cool waters of the tributary streams, where it feeds on small invertebrates in rocky substrates. In the surrounding forest, the federally endangered Indiana bat and Northern Long-Eared Bat emerge at dusk to forage on insects above the canopy and along stream corridors. The federally endangered rusty patched bumble bee moves through the understory and herbaceous layer, pollinating flowering plants including the threatened Virginia spiraea. Allegheny Mountain Dusky Salamanders occupy the splash zones and seepage areas near streams, while American beavers engineer the hydrology of lower stream reaches, creating wetland habitat that supports eastern newts and common watersnakes. The Canada Warbler nests in the dense understory of cove forests, hunting insects in the mid-story vegetation.

Walking through this landscape, a visitor experiences distinct transitions in forest character. Following one of the tributary streams upslope from Chestnut Flats, the forest begins as a mixed hardwood stand but darkens noticeably as eastern hemlock becomes dominant in the cove, the canopy closing overhead and the understory thinning to shade-tolerant species. The sound of water grows louder as the stream gradient steepens. Climbing out of the cove onto the ridgeline—Briery Knob or Spruce Mountain—the forest opens slightly, red spruce and yellow birch replacing hemlock, and the understory becomes more diverse with flowering plants visible in season. The ridge itself offers a different acoustic environment: wind through the canopy replaces the sound of water. Descending into another drainage on the opposite slope repeats the pattern: the forest darkens again, hemlock returns, and the sound of running water signals entry into another cove forest community. This repetition of cove and ridge, wet and dry, dark and open, defines the sensory experience of moving through the Falls of Hills Creek area.

Indigenous peoples inhabited and utilized this region for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence, including fluted Clovis points found in nearby Pocahontas County, confirms that Paleo-Indian groups occupied these interior mountain valleys as early as 12,000 to 14,000 years ago. The Monongahela Culture, a Late Woodland group (approximately AD 1000–1700), lived along major river valleys in southern and central West Virginia and built circular villages characterized by central plazas and stockades. The Fort Ancient Culture, contemporaneous with the Monongahela, also inhabited the region. By the late 17th and 18th centuries, the Shawnee held a commanding presence. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy expanded into this region during the 17th-century "Beaver Wars," controlling hunting territories for the fur trade and eventually claiming the territory as tributaries. The Seneca Trail, a well-documented historic trade and warfare route, passed through this area, linking communities from the Northeast to the Southeast. Indigenous peoples used controlled burning to manage the landscape and encourage the growth of specific food-producing plants. The high-elevation forests and rugged terrain were primarily used as seasonal hunting grounds for elk, deer, and wood bison, and for gathering nuts, berries, and medicinal plants. Other groups—the Lenni Lenape (Delaware), Tuscarora, Susquehannock, Mingo, Tutelo, and Moneton—also used or passed through the broader region during various historical periods. By the mid-18th century, the Beaver Wars and subsequent European encroachment displaced many Indigenous groups. The Proclamation of 1763 attempted to use the Allegheny Mountains as a boundary between settlers and Indigenous lands, but this was largely ignored by westward-moving colonists.

Logging dominated the landscape in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Virtually every hollow and mountain in the region once contained temporary narrow-gauge railroad grades operated by Shay geared locomotives to extract timber from steep gorges. The rugged terrain necessitated moving temporary tracks as different forest sections were cleared. This industrial activity, combined with subsequent fires and flooding, resulted in the complete destruction of the original ecosystem. To the west, the town of Richwood served as a major industrial hub for the Cherry River Boom and Lumber Company, one of the largest lumber operations in the state during the early 20th century. Nearby Cass functioned as a company town for the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company. Historically, selective areas were also used for livestock grazing.

The Monongahela National Forest was established on April 28, 1920, when President Woodrow Wilson signed Proclamation 1561. The establishment was authorized by the Weeks Act of 1911, which permitted the federal government to purchase private lands in the eastern United States to protect the headwaters of navigable streams and restore forests devastated by logging and erosion. The first tract acquired for the forest—the 7,200-acre Arnold Tract in Tucker County—was purchased on November 26, 1915. On January 8, 1927, the National Forest Reservation Commission approved an extension of the original proclamation boundary to include scenic areas such as Seneca Rocks and Smoke Hole Canyon. During the Great Depression, the forest underwent its most significant growth, more than tripling in size between 1932 and 1942, from approximately 261,968 acres to nearly 806,000 acres. This expansion included land purchases near Richwood, the general region where Falls of Hills Creek is situated. On April 28, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed legislation that transferred lands in Hardy County, West Virginia, and western Virginia from the Monongahela to the George Washington National Forest while simultaneously expanding the Monongahela's southwestern boundary. During the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps was highly active in the forest, constructing roads, trails, and fire towers and planting millions of trees on denuded slopes. Between 1943 and 1944, the U.S. Army used portions of the forest as a maneuver area and training ground for mountain warfare.

On September 28, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Public Law 89-207, establishing the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, comprising approximately 100,000 acres within the forest's boundaries. The Eastern Wilderness Act of 1975 established the Otter Creek and Dolly Sods Wilderness Areas and significantly refined the forest's internal management boundaries. The forest now encompasses over 921,000 acres of federal land within a proclamation boundary of approximately 1.7 million acres. Falls of Hills Creek is protected as a 6,925-acre Inventoried Roadless Area under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

Vital Resources Protected

Headwater Network Supporting Federally Endangered Aquatic Species

The Falls of Hills Creek area contains the headwaters of Outlet Spring Creek, Hills Creek, and multiple tributary systems (North Fork Cherry River, South Fork Cherry River, Bruffey Creek, Bear Run, Darnell Run, Glade Run, Laurel Run, Spruce Run, Charles Creek) that form a connected drainage network across 6,925 acres. The candy darter, a federally endangered fish found in these cold, clear headwater streams, depends on the intact riparian buffers and stable stream channels that the roadless condition maintains. These headwater systems are classified as Tier 3 Outstanding National Resource Waters under West Virginia law, meaning they support exceptionally high water quality—a condition that depends on the absence of road-related sedimentation and erosion that would degrade spawning substrate and increase stream temperatures.

Interior Forest Habitat for Federally Endangered Bat Species

The Northern Hardwood Forest, Cove Hardwood Forest, and High Allegheny Rich Montane Forest ecosystems across the elevation gradient (3,000–4,400 feet) provide unfragmented interior forest habitat critical for the Indiana bat and Northern Long-Eared Bat, both federally endangered species. These bats require continuous canopy cover and mature forest structure to forage and roost; roads fragment this habitat and create edge effects that expose bats to predation and reduce insect prey availability. The roadless condition preserves the structural complexity—large trees, snags, and dense understory—that these species need to survive, particularly as White-nose Syndrome continues to reduce bat populations across the Monongahela National Forest.

Montane Meadow and Cove Forest Habitat for Federally Threatened Plants

The acidic cove forests and high-elevation areas support small whorled pogonia and Virginia spiraea, both federally threatened plants that require specific soil chemistry, moisture regimes, and light conditions found in undisturbed montane ecosystems. Road construction and the associated soil disturbance, drainage alteration, and canopy removal would destroy the precise microhabitat conditions these plants depend on. Because these species have limited geographic ranges and small population sizes, habitat loss in this area cannot be offset by recovery elsewhere.

Pollinator and Insect Assemblage Supporting Ecosystem Function

The roadless area provides continuous habitat for the rusty patched bumble bee (federally endangered) and monarch butterfly (proposed endangered), which depend on native flowering plants including tall blue wild indigo (vulnerable, IUCN) and other understory flora that persist only in unfragmented forest. The rusty patched bumble bee requires large territories of connected flowering habitat to forage; road construction fragments this landscape and introduces invasive plant species (multiflora rose, Japanese barberry, stinging nettle) that displace native wildflowers and reduce food availability. Loss of these pollinators cascades through the forest ecosystem, reducing seed set in native plants and disrupting reproduction across multiple plant species.

Threats from Road Construction

Stream Sedimentation and Temperature Increase Degrading Candy Darter Habitat

Road construction on the steep terrain (elevations 3,000–4,400 feet) requires cut slopes and fill that expose bare soil to erosion. Rainfall runoff from roads and disturbed areas carries fine sediment directly into the headwater streams where candy darters spawn, smothering the clean gravel and cobble substrate these fish require for egg incubation. Simultaneously, removal of streamside forest canopy to accommodate road corridors increases solar radiation reaching the water, raising stream temperatures—a critical threat in headwater systems that are already near the thermal tolerance limits of cold-water species. The interconnected drainage network means that sedimentation and warming in one tributary affects water quality throughout the entire Hills Creek system, compromising the Tier 3 Outstanding National Resource Water designation.

Habitat Fragmentation and Edge Effects Isolating Bat Populations

Road construction fragments the continuous interior forest into smaller patches separated by open corridors, creating edge habitat where bats are exposed to predators and where insect prey density declines. Indiana bats and Northern Long-Eared Bats require large, unfragmented territories to forage effectively; fragmentation reduces the area of suitable habitat available to each individual and isolates populations, preventing genetic exchange and reducing adaptive capacity as White-nose Syndrome continues to threaten these species. The linear disturbance of a road corridor also facilitates the spread of invasive plants and pests (Hemlock Woolly Adelgid, Emerald Ash Borer) that further degrade forest structure and reduce the structural complexity bats depend on for roosting and foraging.

Soil Disturbance and Drainage Alteration Destroying Rare Plant Microhabitats

Road construction requires grading, fill placement, and drainage installation that fundamentally alter soil moisture, chemistry, and structure across the roadbed and adjacent areas. Small whorled pogonia and Virginia spiraea occupy specific microsites with precise soil conditions; the physical disturbance of road construction destroys these conditions irreversibly. Additionally, road drainage systems redirect water flow away from seepage areas and wetland-upland transition zones where these plants occur, lowering water tables and drying soils that these species require. Because these federally threatened plants have extremely limited ranges and small populations, the loss of even small patches of habitat in this area represents a significant threat to species survival.

Invasive Species Establishment and Spread via Road Corridors

Road construction creates disturbed soil and open canopy conditions that favor invasive plants (multiflora rose, Japanese barberry, stinging nettle) documented as threats in the region. These species establish along road edges and spread into adjacent forest, displacing native understory plants including the wildflowers that rusty patched bumble bees and monarch butterflies depend on for nectar and pollen. The road corridor itself becomes a dispersal pathway for invasive species, allowing them to spread from the roadside into the broader forest interior. Once established, invasive plants are difficult and costly to remove; the roadless condition prevents this initial foothold and maintains the native plant community that supports the full suite of pollinators and herbivores the forest ecosystem requires.

The Falls of Hills Creek Roadless Area spans 6,925 acres of mountainous terrain in the Monongahela National Forest, featuring three consecutive waterfalls that drop 220 feet over a 3/4-mile stretch. Access to the falls themselves is via the Falls of Hills Creek Trail, a 0.75-mile route beginning at the trailhead off WV Route 39/55, approximately 5 miles west of Cranberry Mountain Nature Center. The first 1,700 feet is a paved, handicap-accessible boardwalk; beyond that, dirt paths and 380 metal steps lead to viewing platforms at the upper falls (25 feet), middle falls (45 feet), and lower falls (63–65 feet). The lower falls drops into a narrow stone amphitheater and is among the highest waterfalls in West Virginia. Photographers should note that the steep ravine limits sunlight even in summer, and mist often hangs low over the gorge. Spring wildflowers, autumn foliage, and winter ice formations each offer distinct seasonal photography opportunities. Macro work on lichens, seed pods, and leaf textures is also documented in the area.

Hiking opportunities extend beyond the waterfall trail. The roadless area contains nine maintained trails: Bruffey Reserve Trail, Charles Creek Trail, Kennison Mountain Trail, Fork Mountain Trail, Blue Knob Trail, South Fork Trail, Pocahontas Trail, and Eagle Camp Trail. Access points include Kennison Mountain Trailhead, Pocahontas Trailhead, and Eagle Camp Trailhead. These trails traverse Northern Hardwood Forest, Cove Hardwood Forest, and High Allegheny Rich Montane Forest across elevations ranging from 3,000 feet at Chestnut Flats to 4,400 feet at Briery Knob and Spruce Mountain. The roadless condition preserves the backcountry character of these routes — hikers encounter undisturbed forest interior without road noise or fragmentation.

Birding in the area focuses on forest interior species and high-elevation specialties. The Falls of Hills Creek Trail itself, with its dense shade canopy of rhododendron and laurel, provides habitat for species including Canada Warbler, Mourning Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Veery, Swainson's Thrush, Wood Thrush, Blue-headed Vireo, Winter Wren, and Dark-eyed Junco. Spring and summer are peak breeding seasons for warblers and thrushes. The area also serves as stopover habitat during migration for Golden-winged, Blue-winged, and Swainson's Warblers. The Pocahontas County Christmas Bird Count circle overlaps or adjoins the area. Nearby eBird hotspots include Monongahela NF—Falls of Hills Creek, Monongahela NF—Williams River Road, and overlooks along the adjacent Highland Scenic Highway.

Fishing opportunities center on Hills Creek and its connection to the Cherry River system. Hills Creek supports rainbow trout, brown trout, and brook trout and is stocked year-round by the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources with fingerlings and sub-adult fish. The creek is noted for crystal-clear, cold water ideal for trout. Downstream of the lower falls, Hills Creek disappears into a limestone sinkhole and re-emerges as Locust Creek, which also supports trout and flows into the Greenbrier River. The North Fork Cherry River, accessible via WV Route 39, is stocked every other week from February to May with approximately 4,000 fish (rainbows, brooks, and golden rainbows); a 1.67-mile catch-and-release section is located near Richwood, with standard stocking regulations applying upstream to Carpenter Run. The South Fork Cherry River is stocked every other week from February to May with approximately 6,000 fish and offers 8 to 10 miles of public access, with upper reaches near Cold Knob Fork offering less fishing pressure. All anglers 15 and older must possess a valid West Virginia fishing license and trout stamp. The roadless interior provides access to less-pressured sections of these streams for anglers willing to walk in.

Hunting is permitted throughout most of the roadless area in cooperation with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. Black bear, white-tailed deer, wild turkey, ruffed grouse, squirrel (gray, black, albino, and fox), and cottontail rabbit are documented game species. The area is specifically identified as "Bear Country." Current seasons (2025–2026) include deer archery/crossbow (Sept 27–Dec 31), buck firearms (Nov 24–Dec 7), and muzzleloader (Dec 15–21); black bear archery/crossbow (Sept 27–Dec 31) with gun seasons in split intervals; and wild turkey spring (April 21–May 25) and fall seasons in October and November. Non-residents must possess a Class I National Forest Hunting Stamp in addition to a valid West Virginia hunting license. Note that the immediate 114-acre Falls of Hills Creek Scenic Area restricts firearm discharge near developed trails and waterfalls due to high foot traffic. The roadless condition of the broader area provides walk-in access and a primitive backcountry hunting experience compared to roaded sections of the forest, with perimeter access via the Highland Scenic Highway and adjacent Forest Service roads.