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This newsletter is brought to you by the New River Gorge CVB

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Wears your paddle?

If you read my low-water paddling article in our Spring 2023 issue, then you're already familiar with the joke referenced in this section's title. (If you haven't, you can find the link to our free digital mag later in this newsletter.) Last weekend, we took the annual pilgrimage across the Allegheny Front to fire up an overnight paddling trip through the hallowed grounds of the Smoke Hole Canyon. And yep, you guessed it, it was another low-water outing. We scraped our paddles, bumped countless rocks, and grumbled while we dragged our poor boat through the shallows.

With water and air temps both in the high 40s, getting dunked with the wrong gear can quickly become catastrophic. Only one person in our party swamped their canoe and went for a cold swim in the South Branch Potomac, but was able to quickly dry out and warm up after we got a ripping campfire going. Low flows and cold temps aside, it was yet another magical experience in what has quickly become one of my favorite places in the world. Spring arrives early in the Smoke Hole—the redbud and dogwood flowers were popping along with the tiniest, tenderest green leaves on poplars and box elders. The bird watching was also off the charts: a rare loon sighting, a giant white egret, herons, kingfishers, mergansers, and seemingly countless bald eagle flyovers kept the awe flowing strong in our group.

Calm floating with Elephant Rock standing triumphant around the next bend. Photo by Dylan Jones

A brave canoeist sending it clean through the class III Landslide rapid. Photo by Dylan Jones

Nikki and me atop the epic Blue Rock overlook. Photo courtesy HO

Camp vibes on a brisk morning where a restoke of the fire was much needed. The 600-foot limestone fin of Blue Rock looms above, creating a magical setting. Photo by Dylan Jones

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April is WV Native Plant Month

On February 20, Governor Jim Justice signed a proclamation to officially designate April 2023 as "West Virginia Native Plant Month," joining a nationwide effort to increase awareness and appreciation of native plants. This work has been supported by the West Virginia Native Plant Society, which has been working for over 40 years to preserve the Mountain State's diverse array of native plants. We enjoyed spotting our first native spring ephemerals, along with identifying native trees by bark, crown structure, and other features. Join us in celebration by reading Nikki's article on spring ephemerals and nerding out on plants all month long!

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis), a native spring ephemeral. Photo by Dylan Jones

Dutchman's britches (Dicentra cucullaria), another beautiful native spring ephemeral. Photo by Dylan Jones

Cutleaf toothwart (Cardamine concatenata), yet another native spring ephemeral. Photo by Dylan Jones

Nikki planting a particularly special Canaan fir (Abies balsamea) on our mountain top property. In the background is our small pond, filled to the brim with wood frog and salamander eggs. Photo by Dylan Jones

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The mag is growing!

That's right, we're methodically expanding our network of stoke in and around the Mountain State. We added a slew of new distribution points with the release of our Spring 2023 issue, including a handful of locations across WV, two ASCEND climbing gym locations in PA, and REI stores in Fairfax, VA; Rockville, MD; and Columbia, MD. You can view all 170+ distribution points here on our website.

We also plumped up the mag by adding four pages. While that may not sound like a big deal, the printing costs of adding 60,000 pages (15,000 copies X 4 pages) to a press run really does add up, including paying for the extra weight during shipping and distribution. This is a move we've been planning for quite a while, and we are thrilled to have the financial means to make the mag bigger and better each year. I'd like to give a heartfelt shout-out to all of our readers, subscribers, advertisers, and business owners who offered up their counters and shelves to serve as distribution points. We literally couldn't create Highland Outdoors without you, and we really feel the collective stoke every time we interact with you.

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Our Spring 2023 issue is live on the web

You can now read our Spring 2023 issue for free anywhere in the world, so be sure to share this with your friends across the pond. We upload digitized versions of all our print mags to the satisfyingly interactive Issuu platform, which allows us to share our beautifully designed publication with readers who can't receive a print copy. It also gets our highly valued print advertisers some free digital exposure!

This is just a screenshot of the interactive reader (this program won't let me embed the interactive reader in our newsletter 🙄).

To check out the interactive version of our Spring 2023 mag along with every other issue dating back to Spring 2019, visit the Issues page on our website!

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Grab a bevvy and join me for a webi-gnar

But seriously, all puns aside, I'm honored to be a featured speaker for the West Virginia Land Trust's spring webinar series. Join me this Thursday from 6–7 p.m. for an organic (free-range, kale-fed, artesian) discussion about the mag, why and how we choose to cover our stories, and the future of outdoor recreation in West Virginia. Register here and join me in the virtual world with your favorite bevvy!

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New gift subscription now available!

With our new Gift Subscription + Previous Issue, we've made our world-famous gift subscription even giftier. When you purchase this gift subscription for that special someone, they'll receive our current issue and the previous issue in their first package, resulting in a total of five copies instead of the standard four. In case you're not a math whiz, that's 25% more HO stoke!

If you know someone who will love the mag, sign them up for a gift subscription today, or tomorrow, or next. Just be sure to put the recipient's address in the shipping address field. We'll even send a handwritten note saying who sent the gift subscription.

Sign Up Here

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You know the drill—subscribing is the best way to support Highland Outdoors. If you love the mag and want it to continue, please consider joining our 380+ subscribers (thank you!) to get each issue delivered right to your door—and to continue reading it in the future.

Subscribe Here

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Stay tuned for our next installment in late April, featuring new articles, spring travels, and more.

Enjoy, and thanks for reading #westvirginiasoutdoormagazine!

Dylan Jones

Editor-in-Chief

Highland Outdoors