The Monongahela National Forest is a national forest located in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, USA. It protects over 921,000 acres (3,727 km2; 1,439 sq mi) of federally owned land within a 1,700,000 acres (6,880 km2; 2,656 sq mi) proclamation boundary that includes much of the Potomac Highlands Region and portions of 10 counties.
The MNF includes some major landform features such as the Allegheny Front and the western portion of the Ridge-and-valley Appalachians. Within the Forest are most of the highest mountain peaks in the state, including the highest, Spruce Knob (4,863 ft), also the highest point in the Alleghenies. Approximately 75 tree species are found in the Forest. Almost all of the trees are a second growth forest, grown back after the land was heavily cutover around the start of the 20th century. Species for which the Forest is important include red spruce (Picea rubens), balsam fir (Abies balsamea), and mountain ash (Sorbus americana).
The MNF includes eight U.S. Wilderness Areas and several special-use areas, notably the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area.
Read more about Monongahela National Forest: Administration, History, Geography, Ecology, Recreation, Commercial Resources, Photo Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words national and/or forest:
“A good man will not engage even in a national cause, without examining the justice of it.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“A township where one primitive forest waves above while another primitive forest rots below,—such a town is fitted to raise not only corn and potatoes, but poets and philosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil grew Homer and Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wilderness comes the Reformer eating locusts and wild honey.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)