Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest

Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest Review

One of the few remaining sections of the original Appalachian forests, Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, a part of the 17,000-acre Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness, has 400-year-old yellow poplars that are as much as 20 feet in circumference, along with huge hemlocks, oaks, sycamores, and other trees. If you haven't seen a true virgin forest, you can't imagine what America must have looked like in the early days of settlement. A 2-mi trail takes you through wildflower- and moss-carpeted areas of incredible beauty. The forest is named for the early-20th-century poet, killed in World War I, who is famous for the lines "I think I shall never see / A poem lovely as a tree."