Deep in the Pocahontas County of the state of West Virginia, you will come across the Green Bank community. It is situated in the Potomac Highlands within the Allegheny Mountains and close to the Snowshoe Mountain ski resort. The Green Bank Telescope, the world’s No. 1 fully-steerable radio telescope, managed by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is based here. It is also home to the Drake equation, which gives an approximation of the total number of the world’s intelligent civilizations. Amazingly, according to the 2010 census, only 143 people live here.
If you ever come by Green Bank, you can’t go away without visiting the Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, the United States’ first National Recreation Area in a national forest here, set on a 10,000 acre area.
If you’re a Nature buff, you can’t miss the scenic Highland Scenic Byway when you pass through the Monongahela National Forest. From here, you get scenic views of the Allegheny Highlands and some wetlands of bogs. Close by here is the Cranberry Glades Botanical Area where you can see these bogs at close quarters. For outdoor adventure, this is a great camping site and you can get many hiking trails from here, such as the Falls of Hills Creek.
Besides this, you can also go biking on the Gauley Mountain Trail, which runs parallel to an old railroad of the logging era and takes you through forests of red spruce and hardwoods.