We are very excited to announce the return of the Naturalist Rally!! After a two year remote hiatus the 48th Annual Mount Rogers Spring Naturalist Rally is back in full force May 6-8! But more exciting than that, two years of construction and a $2.5 million restoration of the historic 1925 Schoolhouse has opened the door for us to bring the Rally back to its very origins for the first time in more than thirty-five years! The Rally is returning to the “Spike Camp” where it was founded in 1975. This historic moment will also mark the first official Blue Ridge Discovery Center program at our Center!
The immaculately restored 17,240sf building is an incredible resource for the Naturalist Rally. A building solely dedicated to exploring, discovering, and sharing the wonders of the Blue Ridge it will continue an education legacy that spans back nearly 100 years. The structure provides a dining hall, a chapel for lectures, an exploration classroom, a natural history library/museum, and residential rooms that can sleep more than 70 rally participants and guides! Reserve a bed or a room now! This “giant naturalist cabin” is a support structure for launching all of the classic Rally field trips that you have come to love: Salamanders with Dr. Hamed, Geology with USGS Geologist Arthur Merchshat, Birding with Ashley Peele, and Dr. Hopp, and many others!
Beyond the schoolhouse, Blue Ridge Discovery Center has acquired strategic neighboring properties and we have begun onsite habitat restoration, giving us a campus with access to a large creek, a smaller salamander scale branch, wetlands, a frog pond, meadows, and a variety of woodland trails! We are so excited to share and explore with you all what the campus has to offer our Rally community!
Join us for a full weekend of celebratory activities May 6-8! Checkout the special edition t-shirt for this year’s rally and purchase Rally Tickets and Raffle Tickets here.
The rally will be held at Blue Ridge Discovery Center, 6402 Whitetop Rd, Troutdale, VA 24378. For more information please visit www.blueridgediscoverycenter.org/mrnrspring
or call BRDC at (276) 388-3155
