An unusual area where the red spruce forest burned and is now known for its extensive rocky plains, upland bogs, and sweeping vistas. Hardwoods and laurel thickets are at lower elevations. At higher elevations one encounters groves of wind-stunted red spruce, heath barrens where azaleas, mountain laurels, rhododendron, and blueberries grow. The area lies in a natural bowl between Shavers Mountain and McGowan Mountain. It is covered with second-growth forest, dense thickets of rhododendron and mountain laurel along the streams, and a variety of mosses elsewhere.
Spruces are at upper levels and hardwoods at lower levels.
Lots of trails. These separate areas straddle the Laurel Fork of the Cheat River. An almost continuous forest cover is dominated by hardwoods broken by grassy meadows along Laurel Fork. Heavy snows and pleasant summers. Most of this area is in Virginia and Mountain Lake is the only natural body of water in western Virginia.