A photo story

Spruce Knob, West Virginia

I stood at Spruce Knob, West Virginia's high point, in June 2025. It was a gray morning, around 59, with a little drizzle and a breeze around 9 miles an hour. I took a photo of myself in a hoodie at the stone observation tower, with the stairs going up the wall and a white sky behind the railing. Down in the wet gravel I held a small Jesus figurine in a white robe, with an orange sash that reads Have Faith, over the survey disk at my feet.

Spruce Knob is about 4,863 feet, the highest point in West Virginia, in Monongahela National Forest. The stone observation tower is at the top, and the red spruce up there grows flagged to one side from the wind. That same day I also went to Backbone Mountain, Maryland's high point, about a two and a quarter hour drive away. That was West Virginia's high point, another one on the Ocean Outdoors list.