Pickens Maple Syrup Festival

Every year during the 3rd full weekend in March the Pickens Historical & Improvement Society puts on the Maple Syrup Festival. This year the Potomac Highlands region has incorporated maple syrup themed activities around West Virginia for you and your family to enjoy while driving through our beautiful state.

In late winter, here in our mountains surrounding Pickens, when nights are freezing and days begin to warm, it's maple sugaring time! Next, we collect and transport the sap to a sugar house where it is boiled down in large evaporating pans making the thick, golden syrup. It takes about 45 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. The hot syrup is then filtered and packed into storage jugs. West Virginia has a long history of sugar making. The Indians made syrup first. They threw hot rocks into hollowed-out logs that were filled with sap. The early settler quickly learned to make the sweet stuff and use it as their main source of sugar. Today, maple syrup and sugar are widely used in cooking, baking, and as topping. Join us for a full weekend of activities celebrating this tradition each year on the third full weekend in March!