Guyandotte Mountain
Anna Santo, AV Staff
As West Virginia’s tallest mountain west of the New River, Guyandotte Mountain, also known as Bolte Mountain and “Big Ugly,” stands at a magnificent 3600 feet. For the past 11,000 years, communities of hunters and gatherers, pioneers, and more recently, miners, have inhabited the area surrounding Guyandotte Mountain.
The habitat created by Guyandotte Mountain is largely forested, at a high elevation, steep, sloped terrain with gaps among mature forests- ideal for many rare avian species. As the Audobon Society describes it, Guyandotte Mountain “…harbor[s] the highest avian species diversity and density of any statewide point count.” The habitat on Guyandotte Mountain is unique because it is considered a “transition zone,” where high elevation avian species frequently overlap with low elevation species and old field or edge-dwelling species are almost equally abundant as species that prefer interior forest habitat.
Guyandotte Mountain harbors the Three Rivers Migration Observatory and the Southern West Virginia Bird Research Center. The Golden-Winged and Cerulean Warblers, both species of high conservation concern, have high-density populations on Guyandotte Mountain. With mountaintop removal coal operations fragmenting and destroying their habitat, these rare avian species will only become more rare.
