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 for a  presentation that shares three significant principles each one of us can do in our everyday life to help ensure the splendor and wonder of the Appalachian mountains remains for future generations to love and appreciate. Plus, we will have a little fun laughing and checking out some of our surprise guests.

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.