Rock Castle, VA

View looking east from the Virginia Blue Ridge across the Rock Castle Creek gorge to the rolling hills of the Piedmont.

The Piedmont and Blue Ridge provinces extend from southeastern New York to Alabama and include parts of eleven states in the Eastern U.S. and part of Washington, D.C (Figure 1).Blue Ridge physiography is characterized by the highest topography east of the Mississippi River, with elevations ranging from 1,000 ft to over 6,600 ft, and moderate to steep vegetated slopes.The Piedmont is located east of the Blue Ridge and characterized by rolling hills and isolated monadnocks.The Blue Ridge is bordered on the west by the Valley and Ridge Province, and the Coastal Plain Province onlaps the Piedmont to the east and southeast, and the Blue Ridge to the southwest.Major streams and rivers draining the Blue Ridge flow west into the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, and east across the Piedmont and Coastal Plain into the Atlantic Ocean; the latter drainage systems are actively capturing headwaters of westward flowing streams.