Qualla: Potomac Highlands

Potomac Highlands: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. Drive a back road in the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia and your phone will likely go quiet. Some of that is just terrain - ridges that block any radio signal trying to climb out of a hollow. But across the southern part of the region, the silence has a federal source. The United States National Radio Quiet Zone covers about 13,000 square miles straddling the West Virginia-Virginia border, restricting most radio transmissions to protect the Green Bank Observatory's ability to listen to the universe. The result, for visitors, is that cell phone service across much of the southern Highlands is mostly nonexistent. Only the Allegheny Mountain Radio network, broadcasting at low power on a handful of FM rebroadcasting stations, fills the airwaves. The mountains here keep their own counsel - by both geology and statute.

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Image: Antony-22 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Potomac Highlands: Eleven Counties, One Interstate

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Potomac Highlands stretch across eleven counties of eastern West Virginia, where the Allegheny Front meets the Ridge-and-Valley country and produces some of the most rugged terrain in the eastern United States. Travel here is dominated by two-lane state and county roads windi...

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Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Potomac Highlands: Towns Strung Along the Ridges

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. The cities and towns of the Highlands each cultivate their own identity. Berkeley Springs, on the eastern edge, leans into its history as a spa town and arts haven - the natural mineral springs there have drawn visitors since the eighteenth century. Davis, in Tucker County, is th...

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Image: Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) | CC BY-SA 2.5

Potomac Highlands: The Monongahela Inside the Highlands

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Valerius Tygart, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Monongahela National Forest occupies a substantial portion of the Highlands - over 921,000 acres of forest stretching from near Elkins to Richwood. Within those bounds lie some of the most distinctive landscapes in the eastern United States: Seneca Rocks, with its 900-foot Tu...

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Image: Valerius Tygart | CC BY-SA 3.0

Potomac Highlands: Fossil Hunting on the Roadside

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G.H. Dean, Public domain. For anyone willing to bring a hammer and a careful eye, the Highlands hold a startling abundance of fossils. Devonian-age road cuts and quarries from Wardensville to Upper Tract to Yellow Spring expose layers laid down when shallow tropical seas covered what is now Appalachia. Tr...

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Image: G.H. Dean | Public domain

Potomac Highlands: Driving in the Weather

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit APK, CC BY 4.0. The Highlands' weather earns respect. A clear valley can sit beneath a ridge wrapped in fog, and conditions can change abruptly when a road crests a pass. Rain, snow, fog, and high winds catch drivers off guard regularly. Even modest snowfall can pile into large drifts on exposed...

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Image: APK | CC BY 4.0