On July 19th, Blue Ridge Expeditions (BRE), a flagship program of the Blue Ridge Discovery Center, will host a hike on the Appalachian Trail in Bland County. This 4.3 mile hike to Dismal Falls, on the Bland-Giles border, is the first of four hikes led by BRE program director, Amy Roberts, a Bland resident. This is a moderate hike from Route #606 to Dismal Falls and back. A portion of the trail passes through a boulder field, where fossil imprints of worms and shelled brachiopods can be found. The Falls of Dismal is a 15-foot, multi-tiered waterfall on Dismal Creek. It is part of a sandstone formation that is over 400 million years old.

The three other hikes will occur on August 23rd on Garden Mountain, September 13th on Brushy mountain north of Crandon, and on October 18th on Brushy Mountain between Bastian and Bland. All hikes are on the famed Appalachian Trail, a 2,200 mile footpath from Georgia to Maine, completed in 1937. For information about any of these free and fun hiking events, please contact Amy Roberts at 276-688-3793 or aarobert@vt.edu.