Laurel Fork is a protected wildland in western Virginia’s George Washington and Jefferson National Forests, valued as an important conservation landscape in the Cumberland Mountains. Recognized by The Wilderness Society as a Mountain Treasure, it contains a 900-acre core of old-growth forest, with some trees about 200 years old, along with intact watersheds that help protect downstream water quality in Stock Creek and the Clinch River. Its mixed mountain ecology includes special biological areas and largely undeveloped access. Although some of its oldest forest survived because the rugged terrain limited timbering, Laurel Fork lacks stronger roadless protections and has continued to face logging-related activity.