Green Ridge State Forest

Author's Comments

Most people driving west on I-68 through the Allegheny Front have no idea what is on either side of the road. That is the whole story of Green Ridge. Forty-four thousand acres of ridge and hollow, and on a weekday in October you may not see another person. The ridges here run in long parallel lines, the hollows between them deep and forested and genuinely wild in a way that surprises you if you have spent most of your time in the tamer parks further east. Drive Stafford Road to the ridge and the Potomac Gorge opens below you, the river cutting through rock in tight bends that from this height look almost geological in their slowness, like something still forming. Sunrise is the hour. The hollows hold darkness longer than the ridges, and in early November the inversion layers settle into them overnight, so what you find at first light is the tops of the ridges floating above gray fog while the gorge below is completely swallowed. The light hits the high points first. For maybe twenty minutes everything below you is invisible and everything above is burning. Fall color here runs a week or two behind the Shenandoah, which means early November when most people have already decided the season is over. It is not over. The oaks go last, and this forest is full of them. Come prepared to be patient and to be cold. Bring a wide lens and a longer one. The wide is for the ridge and the valley and the horizon. The long is for the river itself, visible in glimpses through the gorge, pale and distant and worth the wait.

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