Appalachian Forest Discovery Summit

AFNHA will be hosting two days of fun in the mountains of Pocahontas County. Thursday September 18 we will be at Alleghany Springs at the top of Snowshoe Mountain joining together with everyone who has an interest in, and is doing the work of, preserving, interpreting, and showcasing all the significant features of the AFNHA region. Lunch will be provided on Thursday, and feel free to join us Thursday evening at the Junction for dinner and drinks on your own.

Our schedule is still tentative for Thursday, but we expect to have representatives from:

• The Nature Conservancy - Spruce restoration in WV
• Snowshoe Mountain - Outdoor recreation, conservation, and accessibility at the Island in the Sky
• Fort Warwick Restoration - Archaeology and history of colonial era fort
• Pocahontas County Historical Sites - Survey of sites across the County
• Mon Forest Towns - Gateway Community Building across the Mon Forest
• Snowshoe Highlands Ride Center - Mountain biking and its economic impact in WV

More to come...

On Friday we will host behind the scene tours of three important sites in Pocahontas County. Meeting times and places will be determined.

• Greenbank Observatory
• Fort Warwick Historical Site
• Cass Scenic Railroad State Park

Tentative schedule will be:

Day 1 September 18, 2025 - $25 per person

Tygart Room, Allegany Springs, Snowshoe, WV

• 8:30 AM Registration opens
• 9 AM Opening remarks & Membership Meeting
• 9:30-10:30 AM Session I (Combined meeting) Introduction and updates from AFNHA
• 10:45 - 12:00 Sessions III & IV (Separate Rooms)
• 12:15 Networking Lunch (Combined)
• 1:30 - 2:45 Sessions V & VI (Separate Rooms)
• 2:45 - 4:00 Sessions VII & VIII (Separate Rooms)
• 4:15 Closing remarks (Combined)
• 4:30 Close of Summit Conference
• 7:30 Join AFNHA Board and Staff for dinner and drinks on your own at The Junction Restaurant right next door to Alleghany Springs

Day 2, September 19, 2025-FREE

Pocahontas County Partners Tour

Please register with the Tour Add-on to help us plan for snacks and refreshments.

• 9am-11am Greenbank National Radio Astronomical Observatory
• 11:30 - 1pm Fort Warwick Historical Society
• 1:30 Cass Scenic Railroad State Park lunch on your own at Shays Restaurant
• 2:30 Behind the Scenes Tour of Cass State Park

Lodging reservations can be made with Snowshoe Mountain for overnight guests online at www.snowshoemtn.com, or by calling 877.441.4386. No group plan has been set up, but rates are very reasonable on the weekdays this time of year. The Inn at Snowshoe starts at $85 a night midweek.

Reach out to us if you have any questions or need more information.

We are still accepting presentation proposals. If you would like to share your passion and organization's activities with our guests, please reach out to us. You may fill out a form at this link: PRESENT

A First Look at a Few of Our Featured Presenters

From Coal Mine to Forest: The Mower Tract Revival

Kristopher Hennig

Kristopher Hennig is the Partnership Coordinator with the Monongahela National Forest. Kris focuses on building collaboration across the National Forest and spends a significant amount of his time working with partners in the Central Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative, a collaborative focused on restoring red spruce-northern hardwood ecosystems across the high elevation landscapes of Central Appalachia.

Kris earned a master’s degree in biology from the University of Mississippi and originally moved to West Virginia to examine the relationships between fungi, red spruce, and flying squirrels. He has worked in the field of natural resource conservation and management for nearly two decades with an emphasis in forest ecology and land restoration. He currently resides in Elkins, WV with his partner and their five year old son and loves to explore the National Forest at every opportunity!

He will be presenting on the Mower Tract, a 40,000 acre landscape acquired by the Monongahela National Forest in the mid-1980s. Historically hosting a mature, red spruce forested ecosystem, this area was heavily impacted via unsustainable logging in the early 1900s and coal mining from the 1950s-1980s. Beginning in the 2000s, the US Forest Service and other conservation partners began efforts to restore this landscape into an area of recreational and ecological significance. During his presentation, Kristopher will discuss the natural history and ecology of this region and the subsequent restoration efforts that have taken place to restore this vast and vital landscape.

The Fort Warwick Project: Archaeology, Heritage Tourism, and Agritourism

Dr. Kim A. McBride and Dr. W. Stephen McBride

Dr. W. Stephen McBride and Dr. Kim A. McBride are historical archaeologists from Greenbrier County, WV who have worked in university, research, and museum settings, and with an emphasis on public archaeology and heritage tourism for over 40 years, mostly within the Appalachian region. They have studied and helped promote heritage tourism around frontier forts of West Virginia since 1989. They have received awards from the National Park Service, the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, Preservation Alliance of West Virginia, the West Virginia Archaeological Society, and the Kentucky Historical Society.

Dr. Kim A. McBride and Dr. W. Stephen McBride will together lead a session focused on archaeology within heritage tourism, discussing how archaeology of the colonial frontier fort of Fort Warwick has been combined with extensive heritage tourism to reach a broad audience of general public and public schools, resulting in enhanced site preservation and site interpretation, and enhanced public education about crucial forest resources in Appalachian frontier settlement and history.

Bob Sheets

Bob Sheets is a retired Pocahontas County High School English teacher and basketball coach. His farm in Green Bank is the location of Fort Warwick or Warwick’s Fort. The fort was built on the property of William Warwick, who is Bob’s fifth great-grandfather. Bob has been actively involved in the excavations at Fort Warwick for the past 20 years and was recently recognized with an Archaeology Award by the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia for the education and public outreach component of the Fort Warwick Project.

Bob Sheets will continue the session on combining heritage tourism with agritourism, with a focus on maple syrup production, a family tradition in the Sheets family.