The Lost/Cacapon River, located in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle, is a beautiful and scenic river nationally recognized for its smallmouth bass fishing, and regionally known for its seasonal whitewater paddling, and wildlife including black bear, bobcat, river otter, and the Wood Turtle, a species of special concern in West Virgnia.
A globally rare plant, Harparella, makes its home along the Cacapon’s river banks in Morgan County. Shale Barrens occur throughout the watershed including some of WV’s largest. A multitude of migratory birds use the forests as refuge both during the Spring and Fall tropical migrations. 75% of the watershed remains forested. As the third largest tributary of the Potomac River, the Lost/Cacapon River is an American Heritage River. Portions of the Cacapon River qualified for Wild and Scenic Designation in the late 1980’s.
The headwaters region of the Cacapon River is known as the Lost River, receiving its descriptive name because of its abrupt termination into a one-mile underground course between the towns of Baker and Wardensville, WV. When the Lost River resurfaces, it is renamed the Cacapon River. The traditional Native American translation of the word “Cacapon” is medicine or healing waters. The largest tributary of the Cacapon, and equal in size to the Lost River, is the North River. Overall, the Lost/Cacapon River is 125 miles long and along with the North River, drains a total of 680 square miles (1,760 km²). The Lost/Cacapon River forms the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay. The River is contained solely within WV and traverses three counties, Hardy, Hampshire and Morgan.
In spite of its rural nature, the healthy future of the Lost/Cacapon River watershed is highly threatened. Corridor H a recently built four-lane highway bisecting the Lost River portion of the watershed brought with it increased development and sky-rocketing land prices – land prices so high that most local people can no long afford to buy watershed parcels. As a result, a full 50% of the landowners in the watershed are second-homeowners, many of whom came here for the quality of life the watershed offered, but can not vote locally to support their wishes for the watershed’s future.
The Lost River is on the 303-D list of rivers that do not meet their designated use (in this case water contact recreation) due to high levels of fecal coliform bacteria that wash in from the ground’s surface after heavy rainfall.
To reduce these threats, the Trust works with landowners who voluntarily wish to protect their land from significant subdivision and development. Since 2000 the Trust has protected over 9,600 acres through permanent conservation easement agreements – an area larger than Short Mountain Wildlife Management Area alone.
The Trust is most interested in parcels that adjoin public lands or other parcels that are already protected – thus significantly increasing the conservation value of our work – wild animals will survive longer on large tracts of protected land than they will on small parcels surrounded by development. A conservation easement agreement does not provide public access and it does not limit the owners from usual activities unless those activities are explicitly restricted by the landowner. For more information, please contact Nancy Ailes at the Trust at (304) 856-1010.