Our unexpected journey back North to escape Irma led us to Southern West Virginia. The area has several state parks and three NPS parks: Bluestone River National Scenic River, Gauley River National Recreation Area and New River Gorge National River. Our jaws dropped when we drove through the parks, they are breathtaking. If you are an outdoor enthusiast, this area should be your next stop. Kayaking, rock climbing, hiking, swimming, fishing, boating and more! The towns that surround the parks are pretty little historic towns, with charm and plenty of coal museums (if that’s your thing… not ours). We stayed three nights and would happily return again.
Where We Stayed
We got lucky with our camping arrangement. We camped at a FREE NPS site nearest the New River Gorge called “Army Camp”. It is called Army Camp because… duh, it was once an Army Camp. When we arrived Sunday afternoon, the campsite was about half full. When we left Wednesday we were the only ones there. The campsite was beautiful. We were close to the river, there were wild flowers around us, and we woke up to deer eating near our camper (which Sparky didn’t approve of). The campsite wasn’t close to the visitor centers or many trail heads, but the long driving didn’t bother us – the drives are scenic and serene.
What We Did
We arrived Sunday afternoon and felt pretty exhausted. We dropped the trailer off and quickly set up before heading out to find the nearby visitor center, Sandstone. The visitor center was once a high school that was converted to a visitor center in 2003. It proclaims to be a green center, which I don’t doubt. The visitor center also had a pretty large museum, and a garden to walk through. We spent about an hour here before heading back to camp.
We had an early start the next day to drive about 40 minutes North to the Canyon Rim Visitor Center and to see the famous New River Gorge Bridge. Built in 1977, it was for many years the world’s longest single span bridge, but now is the fourth. You may recognize it because it is on the West Virginia quarter! The visitor center has an overlook, but it really wasn’t a great view (only the upper lookout was open, the lower one was closed for construction and has a much better view), so we knew we had to get a good hike in for the grand bridge view.
Our first hike of the day was “Endless Wall”. This 2.1 trail was rated moderate and was a lot of fun. From interesting plants to birdcalls, the hike to Diamond Point was lovely. Once we reached Diamond Point we were in awe of the view of the gorge. It was GORGE-EOUS (I know I have used that joke several times, but really – it’s a classic). Sparky enjoyed watching rock climbers nearby and Steve was in photography heaven. We stayed at the overlook for about 30 minutes before returning to the trail and our car. We returned to the visitor center to eat our lunch and people watch nearby.
Our next hike was the “Long Point” trail. The park is doing maintenance, so we ended up having to do another trail, “Butchers Branch” to hook up to Long Point. The trails were close to 3 miles total. Butchers Branch was a little challenging due to some steep elevation change. The entire length of the trails are covered in interesting mushrooms and other fungi. It was fun to find the different shapes and colors. I did notice that Long Point Trail had quite a bit of garbage, which was a bit disappointing. NPS is all about the “Leave no trace” and when people abuse it, I just cringe. The view at Long Point is the iconic Bridge view. Steve worked on taking amazing photos, while Sparky and I sat on a nearby rock and enjoyed the view. When we arrived at the viewpoint it was just us, and within 15 minutes at least 20 people had showed up, so we got out of there. Sparky is doing better, but he is still feeling anxious (especially in smaller areas), and with more people he started getting nervous and protective of me.
We arrived at camp before the rain started. We were exhausted and sore, so we took some Advil and slept well. It was still raining the next morning so we slept in and lounged around. The rain stopped around noon, so we got our hiking gear together and left to go South. At this point, we had no idea what happened with Irma, and where our next step was. We had zero Internet at the camp, so we took advantage of some free Wi-Fi at a visitor center and planned for the next few days. We called and checked in with family. We attempted to fill up our camp water jugs as we were getting low, but the water wasn’t good at the spigot (coming out brown). We decided to make due with what we had and still go on a hike. We went on the “Castle Rock” trail. This 0.6 was rated as strenuous and we get why. It is semi-scrambling and semi-steep, wet rock trail. Sparky is a born rock climber and loved it, and even helped boost me up some steep rocks. During this hike, we saw beautiful sandstone and even coal mineral. The trail met up with the “Grandview Rim” trail and so we took that 0.6 back to our car. That trail was nice and flat and provided views of the gorge. We made it back to our car just in time for the rain to start again.
Our time in West Virginia was an unexpected surprise. I hate not having a plan, and Irma really messed with my plans. We turned a bad situation into a positive one. I love the NPS parks here and will be back someday to complete more trails!
What’s Next
