She explained that the campground, named not for a demon but for the Cryptobranchus alleganiensis —the Eastern hellbender salamander—sat at the epicenter of one of the most successful amphibian recovery projects in state history. By the 1990s, pollution from abandoned coal mines had turned Sunday Creek orange with acid runoff. Hellbenders, which breathe entirely through their skin and need fast, clean, oxygenated water, had vanished.
In the morning, I packed up and left a donation in the rusty coffee can nailed to Roy’s post. On the back of a receipt, I wrote: “Saw Betsy. Worth the trip.” hellbender campground ohio
I looked back at Roy. He was smiling.
By 2015, the creek had turned from lifeless to merely struggling. By 2018, the first wild hellbender nest in over thirty years was discovered under a slab of sandstone just downstream from campsite #7. She explained that the campground, named not for