Dolly Sods Wilderness is a protected high plateau in eastern West Virginia, within Monongahela National Forest, known for a rare eastern landscape of windswept rocks, sphagnum bogs, heath barrens, open meadows, and stunted trees more typical of far northern Canada. Long remote and difficult to cross, the area was heavily altered after rail access reached nearby Davis in 1884, when logging, fires, and overgrazing devastated its forests and soils. Federal purchase beginning in 1916, later replanting, and successful resistance to development gradually secured its protection. Today it remains important both for its striking scenery and as a vivid example of ecological damage and recovery.