Rugged. Difficult travel.

In the list of mountains, they are not among the highest. The entire slopes, including the top, are covered with trees.

In a way, that increased the difficulty of finding a pathway. Can a horse, or a man, find a way from one valley to the next? And then there was the problem of getting confused, losing your direction.

Explorers. Pathfinders. Pioneers. Those of the Daniel Boone generation did have the the luxury of following a highway, or a power cut, as they blazed a trail from eastern to western Virginia. The mountains clung to their own secrets.