by Dick Hall-Sizemore
I first encountered Burke’s Garden many years ago the first time I drove to Southwest Virginia. I was enchanted with it and visit it every time I go to Southwest Virginia. The latest visit was late last month when I was on the way back to Richmond from visiting my grandson in college in Kentucky.
I don’t remember how I found out about Burke’s Garden. I certainly did not stumble upon it. One does not stumble across Burke’s Garden. One has to be looking for it.
To get there, you take a local road south from the town of Tazewell. That road will lead up a mountain with the usual S-curves and hairpin turns. Upon coming down the other side of the mountain, you will be in a large, fertile, green valley completely surrounded by mountains. The road you came in on is the only paved way out. (There is a forest service road at the other end of the valley but whether it is passable varies. Some descriptions of it advise those attempting to travel it have a chain saw handy.)
Radford University geologists explain that the area was once a large dome comprised of shale and limestone capped by harder sandstone. As the forces of erosion cut through the sandstone, the softer rock beneath it eroded more quickly, forming the valley floor with hard sandstone forming the ridges around the edge of the valley. Continue reading