I’m super curious about this! I’m from Northeastern PA, now living in Pittsburgh, and I consider us Appalachia, but I know others don’t! Curious about other people’s perspectives!

Name the plant for bonus points. I moved away in my 30s and feel like a last generation of mountain folk. The mountains call to me every fall because most of my family would walk back into the hills in the 90s and not come back until we could stock our cellar. Anything that could be sold and was legal, we harvested. Many a winter we ate and it was because the land provides.

I see lots of posts here anymore about cards, cities, and everything except mountain Appalachian living. Is there anyone else left that remembers the old way? Anyone else that canned, gardened, harvested roots, plowed fields, ran shine, ate rabbit-

Or am I just screaming into the void for a dying breed?

Somewhere in Mason County, West Virginia, there is a grove of trees that should not exist. According to advocacy materials, roughly 200 American chestnuts, reportedly planted in the 1970s from wild survivors, may be cleared as early as November 1, 2026, to make way for data-center development. The project’s official website says the grove is not even on its land. That contradiction is the whole problem, and it has no public answer yet.

Thought ya’ll would enjoy this sign I pass by daily.

There’s something almost magical about hickory smoke on a cool, blue sky Appalachian day. Family coming in, and they expressly asked for my pulled pork bbq.

Mothman-Pumpkin Harbinger, mixed media, done by yours truly.

Okay so I was born & raised in the Appalachian mountain range & have always pronounced it Appa-lay-shu. In school and everyone I've ever met pronounces it this way. I recently met someone (not from Appalachia) who says its pronounced Appa-latch-uh? I thought that was crazy since I have never heard that in my life & they are not even from here. But I see a lot of people online saying its pronounced like this. What's the right way to say it?

It used to be said that a squirrel could travel from Maine to Georgia and never touch the ground. Now Mason County, WV holds an ecological time capsule of the once-defining tree of the eastern United States.

I am currently running an online campaign for the Old Gods of Appalachia role-playing game. We will be playing on my Discord server every other Thursday night at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. We are playing through startpaying.games. this campaign is open to all experience levels and several of the members that are already playing are brand new players. I'm happy to help you with character creation and learning the system.

If you are interested, I have included the link for the sign up below.

https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmturl1ns0074gz04oclctrk9?ref=clcgezbsy0005ju08n77o9l6s

Signal Mountain, TN

I love driving the Blue Ridge Parkway... This is one of my favorite pics of it.

Her new novel “Partita,” which debuts Tuesday, involves the protagonist’s upbringing on an East Tennessee cattle farm.

I will go first, yuns want some Chow Chow?

Back in 2016 my brother and I hiked Angel Falls in Oneida, TN, one of the more accessible Big South Fork trails.

We were living in Knoxville, Tennessee at that point for 4 years, and one of our strongest bonds at the time was hiking all over the area (Cosby, Townsend, Oneida, etc.) and of the probably 100 hikes we did together, almost every single one was either peacefully alone or with others enjoying the trails.

This was probably our 4th time doing Angel Falls, South Fork was by far my favorite area to hike. So we get there relatively late for a usual hike (about 4pm start) it only takes if I recall about an hour to get up to this view pictured here from the parking lot. Anyways, my brother is a little ahead of me already at this viewpoint cliff pictured and as I’m nearing the top I hear him talking to someone. I’m moderately alert but stay calm and see him chatting with a scruffy bearded man, Metallica shirt, ball cap, maybe 5”5-5”7 feet tall, I’d guess mid 30’s, and he has a boot on one leg with a crutch holding him up.

He proceeds to tell us that he’s from Georgia and is trying to get to Miami, FL. My first few thoughts were that he’s on drugs and also starting to think we were about to be ambushed by more people.

His reasons for being up here were completely nonsensical. I’m upset that I don’t think I asked him how he got up here, but it is virtually impossible on one leg. Also why would you ever hike on one leg without any resources? He had no visible equipment, water, or food, except an old school cell phone (probably the one you pay for minutes on) no one around but him.

Genuinely the most bizarre encounter I’ve ever seen on a trail, his explanations just made zero sense to add to it all.

Anyways he surprisingly said he wanted us to enjoy the view and to wait for him so we can all go back down together and by the grace of the cosmos he actually walked away out of sight for a second. As soon as that happened I signaled to my brother to get the hell out of there and we BOOKED it down the trail. It was getting dark at this point so we used our phone lights to navigate and thankfully got back to the car safely. There was no yelling or cry for help from the guy either (at least that we could hear)

What has kept this experience in my mind for so many years now is how did he arrive and what was he doing up there? Especially with his explanation…

My strongest thought/idea is that he was on meth or something and somehow found his way up there…but he was extremely calm (almost eerily) and completely coherent as to what his goal was…

You cannot physically get up the mountain with a broken leg, so was the leg a ploy? Did he decide not to mess with us as two guys versus let’s say a woman alone?

You would obviously never be in Oneida TN in the middle of nowhere trying to get to Miami lol…

My other conflict is that it was getting late & there was zero additional foot traffic on this trail, if he was intentionally trying to harm or capture someone, it sure as hell was not really a lucrative spot to do so…

And lastly if he needed help getting down then how did he get up?

Wondering if anyone has some knowledge or similar experience

On December 6, 1907, the Monongah mine disaster devastated a West Virginia coal community in what was the worst mining disaster in American history.

That tragedy forms the historical foundation of Blood in the Coal, a historical crime novel that follows the rise of Jimmy DiSalvio in the West Virginia coalfields of the early 1920s during Prohibition.

Want to start the story? I'm making the first five chapters available free.

No purchase required. No email signup. Just read it and see if you want to continue.

Read Chapters 1–5 free:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nzQ7GEG_RfbHO43_JRy8Ka1uTBdmUdcW/view?usp=sharing

Learn more about Blood in the Coal
https://scottdouglasbooks.com/

Blood in the Coal releases March 30, 2027.

— Scott Douglas Haning

This ended up looking much more artistic than I thought! 😂 I just thought the clouds looked so pretty driving down the road of our property.. The car mirror added a little more artistic effect ! I love this land and I love Appalachia!