Pocahontas County

The county in brief

A traveler's read on Pocahontas County

Federal law (47 CFR Part 1, FCC Order 58-1112 of 1958) and overlapping West Virginia statute combine to mandate the National Radio Quiet Zone here — a 13,000-sq-mi cone of radio-frequency restrictions imposed to protect the 100-meter Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, the world's largest fully-steerable radio telescope, from terrestrial interference. The 10-mile inner exclusion ring around Green Bank prohibits WiFi, Bluetooth, microwave ovens, cellular phones, and most consumer electronics; a permitted-equipment list is published by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and enforced by NRAO field technicians using rolling RF-sniffer surveys. Travelers should pre-load offline maps and expect zero cellular service across most county roads.

Eight major Appalachian rivers — the Cherry, Cranberry, Elk, Gauley, Greenbrier, Tygart Valley, Williams, and the upper Potomac's North Fork — all rise from springs inside the county, making Pocahontas the hydrological 'birthplace of rivers' for the central Mid-Atlantic per West Virginia DNR's headwaters atlas. The Highland Scenic Highway (WV-150 / Forest Highway 14) climbs 43 paved miles across the Monongahela National Forest at elevations exceeding 4,500 ft for stretches; it closes by snowfall, typically mid-November. Watoga State Park (West Virginia's largest at 10,100 acres) accepts rigs up to 40 ft on full hookups across 88 sites and 33 cabin loops; Seneca State Forest permits dispersed camping on most forest roads under WVDNR 14-day stay rules. Snowshoe Mountain Resort at 4,848 ft is the highest ski-resort summit in the Mid-Atlantic; the resort enforces seasonal vehicle restrictions on summit roads after snowmaking begins.