Photographs and text provide information on the Appalachian Mountains, covering the topography, climate, plant and animal life, unique geographical features, human cultures, and problems facing the region.
Lawanda, a high school girl trying to sell magazines in order to earn money for college, stirs up a lot of controversy in her small hometown when her efforts lead to the development of a friendship between her and Garland, a World War II veteran living out of a bus up on Cade's Hill.
Love blossoms and grows between a crippled girl and a troubled botanist who has abandoned turn-of-the-century Boston for a life in the southern Appalachians.
A group of white water rafters, facing the Unegama River in the Appalachian Mountains as publicity for a camping gear company, face life-threatening rapids while trying to save themselves from creatures that have been awoken after hundreds of years in a cave and want to feed on their blood.