![]() The popular astronomer Carl Sagan wrote that the energy received by all the radio telescopes on Earth is dwarfed by a single snowflake striking the ground. Here, astronomers utilize the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope to search for signs of extraterrestrial life. Resistance from local landowners, however, stalled these efforts.ĭespite this, Laurel Fork offers some of the best opportunities for solitude in the state - a quality enhanced by its proximity to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, just a crow’s flight south and over the border in Green Bank, W.Va. Located in the Warm Springs Ranger District of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest, the Laurel Fork Special Management Area was once a priority candidate for the protective status of a wilderness designation. The high-pitched calls of northern saw-whet owls echo among the restless boughs, while snowshoe hares duck in and out of the understory and northern flying squirrels den in the old cavities left by wayward woodpeckers. ![]() Here, clear waters amble among remnant stands of red spruce. In the northwest corner of Highland County, Va., there is a secluded, stream-furrowed valley unlike anywhere else in the state. ![]() Maintaining trails along Locust Spring Run often involves removing fallen trees. ![]()
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