The ‘holler’ or ‘hollow’ is ubiquitous in the mountains of SW Virginia. These networks of narrow valleys between ridges form a central organizing principle in human settlement and are often associated with coal mining. In order to avoid going up and down the mountains, railroads (and later on, roads) followed the contours of the river bank and to this day allow for the export of coal from the Appalachian coalfields.

Lines of ‘deforestation’ allow for electrical transmission lines to traverse the mountain ridges of SW Virginia. These long, impossibly straight scars cut across the landscape and mark an interruption in the pattern of native forest and rolling hills.

Part of a line of several hundred round hay bales wrapped in plastic in a field near the WNRV AM radio broadcast station. This pattern of agricultural production is typical during the fall and winter in rural SW Virginia. Submitted by Kevin Jones

Base and stair at shelter entrance