If my 10 year old self was told that my family was going to see a gigantic, tall bridge in the middle of a river valley forest, I’d nag my parents to take me there that very weekend. If my modern self were told that… what am I saying, my modern self would plan that! And so I set my course for not just a famous bridge, but an entire river canyon and the smaller parks that are portions of the National Park, in the often overlooked state of West Virginia. The New River Gorge is not new by any means, but an underrated relic that used to be hidden in the lost lands of this flyover state. I say “used to be” because as of 2021, this gorge has been officially declared as America’s newest national park! It’s time that the state called “almost heaven” received its long-deserved glory of tourists flooding in and tarnishing its land being put on the national radar for parks to visit in 2021.
Logistics
Planning Difficulty: Moderate
Aside from a few state parks and natural areas further away from the main gorge area, there aren’t any wacky paths you have to take to get from one attraction to another. Even better is that they are all within an hour or so of each other. To get the most out of this region, you’ll want to sample the trails close to the New River Bridge (check out the full map at https://www.nps.gov/neri/planyourvisit/fayetteville-area-hiking-trails-map.htm) and expand outwards to other areas also overlooking or near the New River.
Precautions
The cellphone reception is notoriously bad around this region. I can’t even get data at most towns. This means that you’ll need a paper map or at least have an idea of which routes to take.
The Run-Down
A friendly reminder of how my “star” rating (those neat little ★ I put beside every minor location I visit) of each attraction works: ★ = Decent (Could-see). ★★ = Memorable (Should-see). ★★★ = Sensational. A real gem (Must-see).
Arrival Day: A Bridge (Not) Too Far
Not too far indeed, since the New River Bridge is less than a 10 min drive away from the town of Fayetteville! This town is a fantastic starting hub to access everything the park has to offer. You will notice when you finally drive across the famous bridge. Honestly, driving it doesn’t feel a lot different until you get better views of the bridge from different angles. There are a few such angles immediately available after you cross to its eastern side:
★★ Canyon Rim Visitor Center Overlook
This visitor center features a very short, easy boardwalk that offers a view that runs almost parallel to the bridge. You won’t be able to see much of the river below, and you won’t get a full appreciation of how long the bridge really is, but you get some nice canyon views for the short time you put in:
In my opinion, this is a quick tourist stop. To do this famous bridge justice, I highly recommend taking the trails (Long Point Overlook that I’ll cover on a later day) and the very next stop I’m talking about.
★★★ Fayetteville Station Bridge
A nice bridge to get a view of an even nicer bridge – you have to see this one! This bridge is located on Fayette Station Road (Rt 82), and dips down to the base of the canyon right over the river. From here, you can see the entire river, the width of the canyon, the entire span of the New River Bridge, and also learn some history:
This station bridge first built in 1889 acted as the main (and only) path across the New River before the New River Bridge was finally built in 1977. It fell into disuse when the New River Bridge finished construction, and was reconstructed for tourism and pedestrian use in 1997. How inconvenient this bridge was in the past. It requires a lengthy, twisted drive on Rt 82, down and then up the mountain sides in order to reach the other side of the New River.
As a tourist attraction, it does an exceptional (but not the best) job at showing off the mighty New River bridge. There are many trailheads located on the Rt 82 that’s connected to this bridge, and I’ll be returning to these trails on Day 2 when it’s actually summer weather and not cold and rainy.
Day 1: The Quiet and the Dead Historic Towns
Ah foggy, rainy, 50 F, a perfect day for hiking. Wait, what? No way, I’d rather be driving. And that’s what I do on my first day: drive to various attractions, still part of the national park, located further away from the New River Bridge. West Virginia has some rich history, as is evident in some of its small towns. The two towns I visit in this trip are Thurmond and Prince.
★★ Thurmond (ghost town)
There will be no flashy signs or neon lights greeting you here, though there is a very nice looking railroad bridge situated in the surrounding river valley. This small town of Thurmond died with the coal mining industry, and used to be a bustling business hub in the early 1900s for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. Speaking of railway, the main attraction of this historic district is the train depot and the railway that runs through.
When diesel locomotives started taking America by storm in the 1940s, the need for the steam powered locomotives that Thurmond was able to properly service declined significantly. The rail yards, and then the town, slowly faded away. In 1995, the National Park Service restored the Thurmond Depot as a visitor center.
As a tourist attraction, this place is worthy of a visit if not just for the decorative bridge and the surrounding valleys. The New River is the only sound to be heard in this town aside from the rare train passing through. Thurmond is definitely a unique stop just by being a ghost town, and nature lovers can still snap a few good pictures along with the history buffs.
★ Prince (not quite a ghost town)
This luxurious sounding town was owned by the brothers William and James Prince. It was a good supply hub for other big mining towns in the area. Today, it’s not completely abandoned – I passed by several people’s houses before stopping at the train depot that features a noticeably retro art style. On your way into this town, be sure to take some nice pictures on the bridge over the New River.
There won’t be much else to explore here. If you want to visit some historically rich places in West Virginia, take the time to check out Thurmond and Prince.
Day 1: Grand Views from Grandview
My next stop would be a boldly named area called Grandview. This park’s main feature is an overlook of none other than a portion of the New River, along with some more modest hiking trails. When you pull into the parking lot, the Main Overlook would be the first thing you look for.
★★★ Main Overlook
Ah, isn’t it marvelous how the river cuts through even mountains to create a path? I even had the luxury of seeing this place in a very short period of bright sunlight. I…wait, hold up…my bad – I have the wrong picture. Let me look for the correct one in my media folder now.
As is my tradition, I like poking fun at natural areas that look similar to ones I’ve seen or researched. The other pictures I had, in order, are the Delaware Water Gap (I saw in Pennsylvania last year), Lehigh Gorge, Pine Creek Gorge, and Some-River-Cruise-in-Norway.pgn.
As for this overlook, this offers a fine view of how the New River curves around the mountains. The signs say that you can see a few small towns from this vantage point too.
★ Grandview Rim Trail
This is one of several available trails in the Grandview area. It connects to Turkey Spur Rock overlook (which I didn’t get to) and, partway through, provides a dip on a trail called Castle Rock Trail. Honestly, the Grandview Rim trail isn’t all that special on its own. Despite its name that suggests you’ll be walking along the edge of the cliff, you won’t see much of the valleys in the distance due to the thick leaves and trees that will often block your view.
★★ Castle Rock Trail
On the other hand, the Castle Rock Trail is more worth exploring and also a little more dangerous. It takes a small decline on the slopes of your side of the canyon to get to a region where the rock formations are exceptional.
Use a little caution as the trail here is relatively unpaved and full of rocks. After sampling the few trails available here, my next stop would be a waterfall playground.
Day 1: The New River Shows Off Its Best Waterfall
★★★ Sandstone Falls
If you know about Great Falls Park in (mainland) Virginia, then Sandstone Falls would remind you about it a lot. Although these falls are not very tall, they are very very wide, and there are many of them. On top of this, you get to navigate a rock playground as you get to see these falls roaring just inches from your face.
Watch your children and pets closely, because these falls and the fierce current of the New River are not to be messed with. There are no guardrails at all – be sure to stay on solid ground if you’re taking close-up pictures.
I have to say, even after seeing pictures on Google, these falls blew me away in person. You truly have to be there to see just how expansive it is. The drive here is a little far away from the highway, but trust me, you WANT to witness this falls’ power (safely).
Day 1: That Most Famous Water Mill in all of the US
My last stop for Day 1 is at Babcock State Park. I’m pretty tired by this point, so I only see one major attraction in the park. And believe me – the main thing most people know about this park is this exact water mill I’m about to show you.
★★ Glade Creek Grist Mill
I won’t overhype it for you, even though it’s a very popular picture on Instagram, calendars, and beyond. It’s a nice water mill, a quaint piece of history with a nice river flowing by it. I will say that it looks amazing in the fall. The Glade Creek Grist Mill was constructed in 1976, and is still fully operable today.
Why are people so attracted to this mill? The history? The nice river/forest backdrop? I’d think it’s both. It certainly carries an “atmosphere” around it that comes from a lost period of time. Even if you aren’t that much into historical attractions, this setting is picturesque enough to add it towards the top of your bucket list for West Virginia.
That’ll do it for my first day exploring the peripheral areas of the New River Gorge National Park. As the sun and temperature rises the next day, I’ll be hanging a little closer to that famous bridge again.
Day 2: That’s Nut All for the Historical Stops
I start out day 2 with a trip down “country roads” to yet another ghost town of Nuttallburg. Even though it’s geographically close to the New River bridge, getting here requires a surprisingly long drive through the countryside and then down a narrow one lane road.
Nuttallburg, named after the entrepreneur John Nuttall, was another West Virginia town that played a big role in shipping coal. The town gained national attention in 1920 from none other than Henry Ford (the main guy behind Ford Motors), who made many improvements to the town and its mine before selling the Nuttallburg mines in 1928. The town’s production was cut off in 1958, coinciding with the waning demand for New River coal. What remains there today?
★★ Nuttallburg Tipple & Coke Ovens (no, not that Coke. NO, DEFINITELY NOT THAT coke)
With a little hiking, you’ll see the tipple and the coke ovens as part of the Tipple Trail, located in the middle of the woods with only the New River providing sound. The tipple has a “tunnel” that transports coal from the slopes of the nearby mountain. I have to say, finding these obsolete machines almost feels like finding city ruins. It seems there are many towns in West Virginia with industrial histories that are now fading quietly back into the natural valleys.
Day 2: The Walls of the New River Valleys
★★ Endless Wall Trail
On your way to Nuttallburg, if you came from the direction of the New River bridge, you would have passed by the trailhead to the Endless Wall Trail. This is a very worthy hike close to the famous bridge, as it shows you the rock formations on one side of the valley that appear like a “wall”. The hike is not very long at all (under 2 miles) and not strenuous, and offers rewarding views of the surrounding mountains:
This overlook, called Diamond Point Overlook, also offers a cropped view of the New River bridge in the other direction. I don’t consider this trail to be the best that the national park has to offer, but you can’t argue with the hawk eye view of the scenery around you. Speaking of hawks…
Day 2: Raiding the Hawk’s Nest Again
It was last year in a very brief drive in New York (during my trip to Pennsylvania) that I went to a location called “Hawk’s Nest”. As you can imagine, it offered an aerial view of a river valley below. This time, I’m talking about Hawk’s Nest State Park, which features Hawk’s Nest Overlook.
★★ Cliffside Trail (and Hawk’s Nest Overlook)
You can simply drive to the overlook or, if you feel more adventurous, take the Cliffside Trail that traverses underneath the cliffs to connect between the overlook and the lobby parking lot.
The trail is quite difficult and feels quite long even though it’s just under 2 miles, but offers some glimpses of the cliffsides as in the picture above. The trail can also break off into the Fisherman’s Trail, which goes down the cliffs and walks alongside the river, essentially offering the ground angles of the views that Hawk’s Nest offers. Alright then, what does the hawk see when you finally get to its nest?
It’s a lot of what you’ve seen throughout the national park already, albeit with a railroad bridge and also a dam added to the backdrops. At this point, I’ve gotten a little too used to it. But don’t let that discourage you from simply driving to the overlook and peering outwards. And a little secret I’ll share with you: after hiking the Cliffside Trail, you can simply walk back along the road (WV-60) to the lobby parking lot. It’s about 0.25 miles on the road vs. ~2 miles of a knee-jerking hike amongst rocks and inclines. I’ll gladly take the former.
Day 2: My Vote for Best Hiking Trail in the New River Gorge
A while back, I said that the Fayetteville Station Bridge offered a good, but not the best view of the New River bridge. Well now, I will show you the trail that offers the best view, and is what I consider the best trail in the entire national park.
★★★ Long Point Trail
It’s not long at all – just under 2 miles. There’s actually not much to see before you finally get to the overlook it features. The trail itself is meh but the destination is postcard material. This overlook gives you the most unobstructed view of the New River bridge and also of the surrounding greenery. No more talk – here it is:
There is a little rock to the right here that sits you right at the cliff’s edge, peering at the magnificence of human engineering mingled with the purity of nature. I intended to see this as my first stop on day 1, but thanks to the weather, I ended my trip with this flawless view. Would you have ever guessed you’d find this in West Virginia if you saw this for the first time? I wouldn’t have, and so wouldn’t have many other people. 2021 brings a marvelous change to that.
The Closing Lap
You just don’t know what to expect from the unlikeliest of places sometimes. Between the river valleys, fancy bridge after bridge, a waterfall network, and even hidden pieces of industrial history, the New River Gorge fought tooth and nail to earn the title of “national park”. I always like a good underdog story, and the newly enhanced reputation of this gorge would definitely help bring some respect to the fly-over state of West Virginia.
What a way to head into the summer. I have a BIG plan for the middle of this summer, and then…smaller plans because I would have flushed out a lot of vacation days for this upcoming journey. You won’t want to miss it, just like you won’t ever want to miss West Virginia as a vacation candidate again.
Hit the Ground Running 