Ramsey's Draft Wilderness is a designated

wilderness area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural) are Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human activity, or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally ...

in the North River Ranger District of the

George Washington and Jefferson National Forests The George Washington and Jefferson National Forests is an administrative entity combining two U.S. National Forests into one of the largest areas of public land in the Eastern United States. The forests cover of land in the Appalachian Moun ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

in the United States. The wilderness area was established in 1984 and comprises . It is administered by the

US Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands covering of land. The major divisions of the agency are the Chief's ...

Topography

Ramsey's Draft Wilderness is located between the crests of Shenandoah Mountain and Bald Ridge, north of

U.S. Route 250 U.S. Route 250 (US 250) is a route of the United States Numbered Highway System, and is a spur of U.S. Route 50. It currently runs for from Richmond, Virginia, to Sandusky, Ohio. It passes through the states of Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohi ...

and approximately west of

Staunton, Virginia Staunton ( ) is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 25,750. In Virginia, independent cities a ...

. A rugged and steep piece of land, Ramsey's Draft Wilderness ranges in elevation from to at Hardscrabble Knob. The wilderness is named after its primary drainage stream. A "draft," is a local term for a creek.Ramseys Draft Wilderness
- Wilderness.net Ramsey's Draft is a

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

of the Calfpasture River, which feeds into the

James River The James River is a river in Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows from the confluence of the Cowpasture and Jackson Rivers in Botetourt County U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowli ...

and the

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...

History

The

first purchased land in this area in 1913 for Shenandoah National Forest, the precursor to the present day George Washington National Forest. The Forest Service has managed the Ramsey's Draft area essentially as a

wilderness Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plurale tantum, plural) are Earth, Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human impact on the environment, human activity, or any urbanization, nonurbanized land not u ...

since 1935 as much of it had never been logged.“Ramsey's Draft is long on hurricanes and floods”
– Roanoke.com A road more than three miles (5 km) upstream from U.S. 250 constructed by the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was ...

in the 1930s lasted until 1969, when rainwater from

Hurricane Camille Hurricane Camille was a powerful, deadly and destructive tropical cyclone which became the second most intense on record to strike the United States (behind the 1935 Labor Day hurricane) and is one of the four Category 5 hurricanes to make ...

wiped out much of the road at the stream crossings. Another flood in November 1985 further eliminated the original road and changed the course of the stream in multiple areas, shortly after the area was officially designated a wilderness under the Virginia Wilderness Act of 1984. The boundaries of Ramsey's Draft wilderness have long been the subject of discussion. The original wilderness proposal, developed in the early 1970s and backed by the Virginia Wilderness Committee and the Potomac Chapter of the Sierra Club, included most of Shenandoah Mountain between Rt. 250 and FDR 95, the western slope down to private land along Shaws Fork, and much of the Bald Ridge area. The U.S. Forest Service recommended the core ~6,500 acres, and this is the tract that became law. Since the 1984 Virginia Wilderness Act, several citizen proposals have been developed to expand the boundaries of the Ramsey's Draft Wilderness.“65,000-acre Wilderness Area Proposed on Virginia Border”
The Charleston Gazette, August 28, 2001 None of these have been enacted. Since 2007, the Forest Service has been working on a revision to its Management Plan for the George Washington National Forest. The draft Plan proposes adding wilderness acreage to the present Ramsey's Draft Wilderness eastern and northern boundaries.Forest Service Summary Plan of 2009 Revision Issues
/ref> The Forest Service notes that a major concern about the Ramsey's Draft addition is the opposition of the county board of supervisors. In 2004, Virginia Wilderness Committee and local mountain biking groups formed the Friends of Shenandoah Mountain to advocate for expansion of the Ramsey's Draft Wilderness to the north and east, and for a separate wilderness on the western slope of Shenandoah Mountain. This new proposal also includes a large National Scenic Area and additional wilderness areas to the north of Ramsey's Draft. A component of this proposal is an adjustment of the present western boundary of Ramsey's Draft Wilderness to remove the Shenandoah Mountain Trail from the wilderness area to accommodate mountain biking interests. The Friends proposal is supported by a large number of businesses, organizations, and faith groups.

Vegetation

Ramsey's Draft Wilderness is well known for its stands of

old-growth An old-growth forest or primary forest is a forest that has developed over a long period of time without Disturbance (ecology), disturbance. Due to this, old-growth forests exhibit unique ecological features. The Food and Agriculture Organizati ...

Canadian hemlock, particularly in the northern reaches of Ramsey's Draft, however these stands are under attack by the

hemlock woolly adelgid ''Adelges tsugae'', the hemlock woolly adelgid () or HWA, is an insect of the order Hemiptera (true bugs) native to East Asia. It feeds by sucking sap from hemlock and spruce trees ('' Tsuga'' spp.; '' Picea'' spp.). In its native range, HWA ...

and may not last much longer.PATC History of Ramsey's Draft
/ref>
/ref> Other large trees in the wilderness include

tulip poplar ''Liriodendron tulipifera''—known as the tulip tree, American tulip tree, tulipwood, tuliptree, tulip poplar, whitewood, fiddletree, lynn-tree, hickory-poplar, and yellow-poplar—is the North American representative of the two-species genus ...

eastern white pine ''Pinus strobus'', commonly called the eastern white pine, northern white pine, white pine, Weymouth pine (British), and soft pine is a large pine native to eastern North America. It occurs from Newfoundland, Canada, west through the Great Lake ...

sugar maple ''Acer saccharum'', the sugar maple, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and the eastern United States. Sugar maple is best known for being the ...

, black birch,

shagbark hickory ''Carya ovata'', the shagbark hickory, is a common hickory native to eastern North America, with two varieties. The trees can grow to quite a large size but are unreliable in their fruit output. The nut is consumed by wildlife and historically by ...

, and

northern red oak ''Quercus rubra'', the northern red oak, is an oak tree in the red oak group (''Quercus'' section ''Lobatae''). It is a native of North America, in the eastern and central United States and southeast and south-central Canada. It has been intro ...

. Over 250 species of vascular plants have been identified and logged in Ramsey's Draft Wilderness.

Wildlife

Ramsey's Draft is one of the stops on the Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail established by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail: Ramsey’s Draft
/ref> In its description of Ramsey's Draft on the Birding and Wildlife Trail website, the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries explains that this site "is probably popular among birders because it provides nesting grounds for neotropical migrants that typically nest at high elevations." Ramsey's Draft itself is a native

brook trout The brook trout (''Salvelinus fontinalis'') is a species of freshwater fish in the char genus ''Salvelinus'' of the salmon family Salmonidae native to Eastern North America in the United States and Canada. Two ecological forms of brook trout h ...

stream. Other common wildlife found in Ramsey's Draft Wilderness include

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known Common name, commonly as the whitetail and the Virginia deer, is a medium-sized species of deer native to North America, North, Central America, Central and South America. It is the ...

, black bear,

wild turkey The wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo'') is an upland game bird native to North America, one of two extant species of Turkey (bird), turkey and the heaviest member of the order Galliformes. It is the ancestor to the domestic turkey (''M. g. dom ...

squirrel Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae (), a family that includes small or medium-sized rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrel ...

grouse Grouse are a group of birds from the order (biology), order Galliformes, in the family (biology), family Phasianidae. Grouse are presently assigned to the Tribe (biology), tribe Tetraonini (formerly the subfamily Tetraoninae and the family Tetr ...

raccoon The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the North American, northern or common raccoon (also spelled racoon) to distinguish it from Procyonina, other species of raccoon, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest ...

beaver Beavers (genus ''Castor'') are large, semiaquatic rodents of the Northern Hemisphere. There are two existing species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers are the second-large ...

and

rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

, among others.

Recreation

The property has been used for recreation for many years. The

Potomac Appalachian Trail Club The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) is a volunteer organization that works to maintain hiking trails in the Washington, D.C. area of the United States. PATC was founded in 1927 to protect and develop the local section of the then new Appal ...

constructed the Sexton Cabin within the present wilderness boundaries in 1938 Destroyed by fire in 1967, it was rebuilt. Shortly after Ramsey's Draft Wilderness was enacted as law, the Forest Service, interpreting the Wilderness Act to preclude any structures in federal wilderness areas, had the cabin removed. (PATC disputed that decision, and in later years it was determined that existing structures in wilderness areas could stay.) All that remains today is the chimney of Sexton Cabin, along the present-day Jerry's Run Trail. Logs from the Sexton Cabin were later used to construct the PATC's Mutton Top Cabin. The major trail through the center of the wilderness is the Ramsey's Draft Trail. Rebuilt after the 1985 flood, this trail follows the streambed and the old road (where possible), and has been described as "one of the most popular on Virginia roadless lands" in one guidebook. Other trails in and around Ramsey's Draft Wilderness include: *Jerry's Run Trail *Shenandoah Mountain Trail *Road Hollow Trail *Bridge Hollow Trail *Bald Ridge Trail * Wild Oak Trail *Sinclair Hollow Trail *Hiner Spring Trail The Shenandoah Mountain Trail is a segment of the

Great Eastern Trail The Great Eastern Trail is a network of hiking trails forming a long-distance route in the eastern United States. North of Georgia, the route runs parallel to, and slightly to the west of, the Appalachian Trail. As of 2022, it is still under dev ...

project.

References

External links

National Forest Web siteWilderness.netTopoQuest topographic mapHiking Upward website account of Ramsey’s Draft hikeVirginia Wilderness Committee web site
{{Authority control Protected areas of Augusta County, Virginia George Washington and Jefferson National Forests IUCN Category Ib Wilderness areas of Virginia Civilian Conservation Corps in Virginia Protected areas established in 1984 1984 establishments in Virginia