1200-acre
Wild Rock Canyon, WV
Total Project Cost: $1,450,000
Balance as of 06/17/2025: $43,502.72
Stewardship Funds critically needed
West Virginia, the nation’s 3rd most forested state, offers the most splendid wildlands preservation opportunities east of the Mississippi. Wild Rock Canyon, a premier preservation opportunity, protects nearly three miles of the deep ravine of Rennick Creek and includes nearly the entire watershed for the mountain stream. The property is more than double the size of any previous Arc of Appalachia acquisitions.
Lying just 12 miles east of New River Gorge National Park, Wild Rock Canyon boasts an elevation change of 1000 feet from ridgetop to valley floor. Its waters flow into the New River and on to the Kanawha, which joins the Ohio River just east of Gallipolis. Thus, the Ohio River watershed encompasses all of the Arc’s Ohio preserves and now Wild Rock Canyon.
Black bears, deep-forest warblers, and a high diversity of salamanders are the signature wildlife species for this immense, unbroken forest in Greenbrier County near Lewisburg, WV
Photo by Elijah Crabtree
What is most impressive about Wild Rock Canyon’s natural history?
Its stunning biodiversity! We sponsored a bioblitz at Wild Rock Canyon last summer with sixteen Ohio field biologists and naturalists participating. They seined the creeks, turned over stones, keyed plants, set up mist nets for bats, launched drones, and positioned 18 game cameras to catch glimpses of mammals. Highlights from that weekend included the mist-netting of an Eastern small-footed bat, a very rare bat throughout its range. Weighing only 6 grams, it is one gram less than a ruby-throated hummingbird! Biologists also netted the large 16-inch winged hoary bat, with a total of four observed bat species over the weekend. Thirteen species of amphibians were recorded, most of them salamanders. Salamander species included the cave salamander (an endangered species in Ohio), seal salamander, and Allegheny Plateau salamander.
Moth light stations were set up each night and the number of moths swarming around those lights was exhilarating to behold. At one station alone on just one night we drew in over a dozen luna moths, one species of the many stunning silk moth species observed that weekend. But the most thrilling of our wildlife finds were the mammals that were captured in video on our game cams, especially so many black bears!! And those bears loved smashing our cameras! We recorded multiple females with cubs and several solo boars. The most outstanding feature of Wild Rock Canyon, however, is its sheer size.
Where do the waters of Wild Rock Canyon go?
Wild Rock Canyon encompasses 11 miles of Rennick Creek and its tributaries. Being in the same watershed as our Ohio Arc properties, just imagine—a person could sit on the ridge top at the Arc’s Ohio River Bluffs Preserve outside Manchester, Ohio, and watch the waters of Wild Rock Canyon drift by as part of the Ohio River. The waters of Wild Rock Canyon journey from Pigeon Hollow to Rennick Creek (both streams nearly wholly contained on the property) to Kitchen Creek to Muddy Creek to Greenbrier River to the New River to the Kanawha River to the Ohio River to the Mississippi River and on to the Gulf of Mexico.
Is Wild Rock Canyon open to the public?
Until we have staff near these lands to steward trails, Wild Rock Canyon will be maintained as an Arc of Appalachia Forest Reserve that is primarily dedicated to habitat protection for native plants and animals, a place where the forest is able to mature into old-growth forest status. Anticipating that we will remain active in West Virginia, we trust that the needed philanthropy will eventually support trail stewardship. Once that happens, we will gladly build a small parking trailhead and offer hiking trails at Wild Rock Canyon, just as we do in our Ohio preserves. In the meantime, access is limited to our stewardship staff and volunteers and by special permit to field biologists and researchers.
You can save an acre of Wild Rock Canyon for only $1200, or you can preserve 1% of Wild Rock Canyon for $15,000. Regardless of the size of your donation, please give what you can. Here’s a fun fact: You can buy a square yard for just 25 cents!! That’s one really big tree or a bushel of wildflowers with a chipmunk thrown in for free! Do your own math and have fun with it.
Where is Wild Rock Canyon? The map below shows Wild Rock Canyon’s location in relation to other conservation lands and major towns in southeastern West Virginia. Wild Rock Canyon is located in the center of the map, just east of Beckley.
