The story of Dolly Sods is one of ancient forests of red spruce and oaks growing to immense size on dense mats of organic humus several feet thick. Forests unseen in our world today and virtually unimaginable, though they were present only a few lifetimes ago.

It is a story of exploitation by uncontrolled logging and the tragedy of consuming fires in the aftermath of logging.

The Nature Conservancy played an important role in protecting the area, which now is in a long slow era of recovery.

This intimate landscape is a microcosm of the "Heath Barrens" or "Huckleberry Plains" composed of Mountain Laurel, Teaberry, and Sphagnum Moss, and other Ericaceous plants that now cover large acreage on The Sods.