- Cumberland Mountain View Drive
Half a day is needed to explore this winding stretch of rural Appalachia
and national forest. The Cumberland Mountain View Trail is a 19-mile drive
into America's past as mountainous Dickenson County unfolds alongside VA
611 between Clintwood, VA and Breaks Interstate Park.
The unpretentious yet scenic back road even retains an unpaved 3-mile
stretch as a memento to the roads of yesteryear. This is authentic Appalachia
with all its sweeping natural beauty on display—the beauty that caused
early Scots-Irish settlers to come, to see, to stay. Along the Cumberland
Mountain View Drive are sharp turns and sheer drop-offs, quiet fishing coves
and weathered log barns, swinging bridges and roadside overlooks where wild
geraniums and trillium provide a colorful foreground for Pine Mountain.
This is ruffed grouse and wild turkey country.
Visitors shouldn't be surprised to see either bird walking across the
road. Deer aren't numerous in Dickenson County, but after years of restocking
by state officials, it is possible that visitors might catch the bright
eyes of a doe and fawn peering from the hardwood groves and rhododendron
thickets of the Jefferson National Forest. Though rural and remote, the
road is safe and well maintained. At the Old Ranger's Cabin near Clintwood,
visitors can examine the foundation of one of the area's earliest settlement
homes. And at Splash Dam Bridge near Flannagan Dam, they can inspect the
ingenious, turn-of-the-century locks built on the Russell Fork River to
aid in floating logs downstream during spring floods.
Directions: About 5 miles south of Breaks Interstate Park on VA 80 in
northern Dickenson County, go west on VA 611. Or from Clintwood, go 2.5
miles north on VA 631 to join VA 611 at Isom.
For more information: Breaks Interstate Park, phone (540) 865-4413.
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