Due to continued concerns about the covid-19 pandemic, the Forest Museum and connected trails, Etawah Woods, Valley of the Ancients and Barrier Ridge, will be closed until April, 2021. During this time we will be taking this opportunity to make long-deferred improvements and renovations to the trails and museum that require warm weather to complete. All other trails at the Highlands Nature Sanctuary remain open.

The Appalachian Forest Museum

The Appalachian Forest Museum is the Arc’s main visitor center showcasing eight fine-art murals depicting the world significance of Ohio’s forest and America’s Eastern hardwood biome. There are two short hiking trails beginning from the Museum, bringing you through an old-growth forest and winding down into the Rocky Fork Gorge, and a 3.5 mile loop trail beginning at the Museum’s lower parking lot.

The Forest Has a Story…

The Appalachian Forest Museum is the first museum in the world devoted to Earth’s temperate deciduous forest . Visually stunning and inspiring, the Appalachian Forest Museum brings visitors a new perspective of our “home-sweet-biome.” Follow a deer trail through an ancient grove of old-growth tree replicas to experience the little-known but world significant story of the temperate forest.

The story, which starts 33 million years ago and spans across the globe, is told in nine chapters, each illustrated by an original mural sized oil painting, hand-painted by renowned artists Geoff Mowery, John Agnew, Robert Dafford, and Ann Geise.