Jordon Blevins with DCR will discuss the different trees, plants, animals, and spring ephemeral species of a high elevation spruce and northern hardwood forest. We will hike the Twin Pinnacle trail loop that is approximately two miles long.

Join Nancy Adamson on a wildflower jaunt in Grindstone Campground. Expect an abundance of blooms. Bring a hand lens and a camera.

Learn to enhance your observational skills and record your experiences in the natural world. Artist Suzanne Stryk will share her drawing process by demonstrating how to make quick sketches and more sustained studies. Pencils, kneaded erasers, and paper are provided, or bring your own. Children under 12 are welcome if accompanied by an adult.

Join Darin Handy and Tina Altizer for an interactive presentation taking a look at some of the current issues of native and exotic turtles being kept as pets and the effects on native environments and those that work in the field. As the fascination and ease of obtaining turtles grows, so does the issues of containment, identification, husbandry, education, understanding, confiscation, and so on. During the presentation you will be presented with multiple live turtles and have to become the wildlife rehabber, hobbyist, animal rescue, wildlife official, pet store owner, animal control officer, etc. to determine what species it is, where it's from, and what do we do with it now?

A beginner-friendly wild cave trip with Laura Young and John King of Walker Mountain Grotto. Helmets with mounted lights and headlamps will be provided. Participants may use their own headlamps and/or caving or climbing helmets. Please bring (2) AAA batteries and a back-up headlamp/flashlight. Wear old, long-sleeved work clothes that can get muddy, and sturdy boots or closed-toed shoes with good lugged soles. Bring a change of clothes and bag for muddy gear. Limited participants.

Meet Tom McMullen, Tumbling Creek Cider Company co-owner, educator and orchard manager. This session focuses on the science behind apple propagation and growing methods both old and new.  It includes a visit to the Old Kelly Orchard. These orchards have more than 1400 apples trees mostly grafted by Tumbling Creek Cider folks.  The orchards contain more than 60 varieties of heirloom apples preserving some apple diversity and resulting in some excellent hard cider.  After the orchards we head to the Cider Barn and a discussion of the "apple to glass" process of hard cider making. 

Join Claiborne Woodall, DCR Division of Natural Heritage, for a botany lesson and an in depth study of the ecological benefits of prescribed fire.

Bill Gable will discuss the history of Konnarock and our mountain community through the film, “Below Whitetop”. In 1934 Bill’s father, John Gable, a young Lutheran seminarian, was employed by the church to make a film illustrating daily life and the Lutheran Church’s missionary activities in Konnarock, an isolated lumber community nestled between Virginia’s two highest mountains. The church brought education and health care along with religious worship and instruction to this mountain community where the “Virginia Creeper Train” was the primary means of accessing the outside world.

Naturalist and fly fisherman Drew Morris will discuss the history and reasons why we “match the hatch,” as we show you how to tie a fly that imitates aquatic invertebrates in order to catch the elusive trout species. 

Insects and Kin: Spring is the perfect time to find insects and their relatives emerging after the long, highland winter. Join Western Carolina University biologist Cade Campbell to search for spring invertebrates, from millipedes to dragonflies. Cade has studied a variety of wildlife without backbones, from butterflies in the Northwoods to giant land snails in South America, but mostly the ten-thousand species (and counting) of terrestrial invertebrates that live around Southwest Virginia during his time with the Blue Ridge Discovery Center. Learn how to find, identify, photograph, and collect mountain insects, and why they are important to the greater Mount Rogers ecosystem.