As many in the Chapter know, we have held a New Year’s Day walk on January 1st for over a decade but this year it will be held on Sunday, January 4th instead. The reason is that Belle Isle State Park has a First Day Walk that in past year’s was held earlier in the day. But this year the Park’s walk will be held at 1 pm and is in direct conflict with the Society’s walk. Both are great events and conflicts are not and a few of our members have alerted us to the conflict, so the Hickory Hollow Skunk Cabbage New Year’s Walk has shifted to Sunday, January 4th at 1 pm and is still a New Year Nature Walk.

This event is a great way to get all nature loving folks and plant nerds out at the beginning of  the year to see Virginia’s earliest blooming native plant, Skunk Cabbage. And the walk takes place in one of the Northern Neck’s best natural areas, Hickory Hollow Natural Area Preserve near Lancaster, off Regina Road.

 Trip leaders, Betsy Washington and Kevin Howe from the Northern Neck Chapters of National Audubon Society and Virginia Native Plant Society will again lead this nature walk meeting at 1 pm at the Hickory Hollow parking lot. This is free and open to all.

“Most people have no idea that some plants, about 900 species, can produce their own heat and raise their temperature above the surrounding air.  Skunk Cabbage is one of the few plants that can produce enough heat that it can even melt snow to burst through ice and snow and bloom in freezing temperatures, said Howe. Research has found it can generate enough heat to raise its temperature 25 to 70 or more degrees above air temperature for a period of time measure in days.” The walk will be about a two-mile roundtrip to Cabin Swamp. Although most of the trail is level, please wear sturdy shoes as the trail down to the swamp is narrow and steep. Also, at this time of year, the spores of a native plant called Clubmoss should be available to show off a bit of pyrotechnic showmanship”, said Howe.

 Four of the 69 Virginia Natural Area Preserves are located in the Northern Neck and while all are jewels, Hickory Hollow may be the best with its numerous forested hiking trails throughout its 254 acres. All of the Commonwealth’s state natural area preserves were created and are protected because they contain some of the rarest natural communities and unique species habitats in Virginia. Hickory Hollow fits that definition well as it contains one of the few globally rare natural community known as a "Coastal Plain Basic Seepage Swamp” and supports a high level of biological diversity including one orchid found nor where else in Virginia.

Hickory Hollow was established in 2000 and is owned by the Northern Neck Audubon Society but managed by the Virginia Dept of Conservation and Recreation’s, Division of Natural Heritage. Please join the walk in Sunday, Sept. 4th at 1 pm.