The Spruce Knob Mountain Center (SKMC) serves as TMI's 400-acre education, demonstration, conservation, research, and conference facility. It is located in Pendleton County on the upper slopes of Spruce Knob mountain (4,863'), West Virginia's highest point. The landscape is characterized by a rolling, high altitude plateau known since pre-colonial times as the "Hunting Ground". The Center is surrounded on three sides (north, east, and west) by National Forest land, and by private land to the southeast. The land was purchased in 1973 through an agreement between The Mountain Institute, The Nature Conservancy, and the Benedum Foundation with the objective of preserving "in perpetuity land uniquely valuable to the natural heritage of West Virginia" (Jenkins, P. 1989, pers. comm.). The 1979 Spruce Knob Land Management Plan, developed in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, provided the key covenants governing use of the property as a "nature preserve for scientific, educational, and aesthetic" use (Nature Conservancy 1979).

The property occupies both sides of a large hollow channeling southward and a smaller hollow draining northward, with most operations taking place on the relatively flat land at the heads of the two hollows. Property elevations range between 3,600' and 4,050' and support a variety of habitats which include forest, woodland, old pasture, wetland, riparian, and karst (sinkhole and limestone cave) formations. Pasture/grassland occupies the central, north-south trending section of the property, bordered by forest and woodland on the eastern and western pasture boundaries. Pasture soils are limestone-based Belmont-Cateache silt loams, high in natural fertility, variable in acidity, and most appropriately used for forest (although suited to pasture if carefully managed for erosion control and desirable grass species). Forest soils are sandstone-based Shouns channery loams, low to medium in natural fertility, moderately to very strongly acid, and best suited for forest/woodland growth (Soil Conservation Service 1992).

Prevailing storm systems are of continental origin and arrive from the west, although the region can also receive maritime storms from the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic (The Nature Conservancy 1995). Ridge interception, orographic uplifting, and the meteorological barrier imposed by the Allegheny Front may also influence the generally higher annual precipitation totals for Pickens (85 inches/yr) to the west of Spruce Knob (41 inches/yr), compared to the lower altitude Franklin region (32 inches/yr) further east. Average annual snowfall at Spruce Knob is about 10 feet, with an average of 55 days with at least one inch of snow on the ground and average winter temperature of 28oF. Average summer daily temperature is 66oF, although freezing temperatures, thunderstorms, and snowstorms can occur at any time of the year.

The 273 acres of forest and woodlands located within property boundaries are characterized by the northern hardwood, mixed hardwood, and pure red spruce timber types (Nature Resources Group 1993). The property's high altitude spruce forests are a remaining example of the extensive coverage once common to the region, but practically eliminated during the logging operations of the early 1900s (Schelling et al., 1992). Wildlife is abundant and includes deer, turkey, bear, hawks, eagles, songbirds, grouse, cave bats, poisonous and non-poisonous snakes, and salamanders; and two rare species, the threatened Virginia Northern Flying Squirrel (Stihler et al. (undated)) and endangered Cheat Mountain Salamander (U.S. Forest Service 1991). Most of the land has been grazed historically. Locally-owned cattle are now grazed on only 50 of the 127 acres of pastureland following the recommendations of the Soil Conservation Service in 1983 (Soil Conservation Service 1983).