New River Gorge National Park

New River Gorge National Park

The New River Gorge National Park is the latest National Park and it became a park and preserve in 2020 as it was a National River.  The video at the visitor center has not been updated since 2010 so you will see the National River mentioned.  The park has two visitor centers one called Canyon Rim and the other is Sandstone.  Canyon Rim is just that it is on the rim of the canyon above the New River, and there is a little path to view the New River Gorge bridge.  The path is about 180 steps down to a view platform allowing you to take in the largest arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere.  As you can imagine the park is mainly along the New River and offers some wonderful white water rafting.  The hiking trails when I was at the park were mainly closed due to the amount of rain that the park has gotten in 2022.  The park was also expecting thunderstorms in the area so the rangers advised against hiking.  The river was above flood stage but the amount of water did not prevent rafters from going down the river.  Camping within the park is very limited and all of the sites and campgrounds are on a first come first served basis.  The campgrounds mainly are accessible by water and the number of spots is limited to about 6.  I did not camp in the park but at a private campground just a 1/4 mile away from the Canyon Rim Visitor Center.  The campground was nice and wooded and they even had showers for the $15 per night per person.  The New River got its name from when surveyors were in the area they discovered the river and put “new river” on the map and the name was never changed from New.  The river is actually older than the Appalachian Mountains and it is over 330 million years old.  The river’s banks allowed people to see all of the coal along the sides and when the railroad was built in the area the mining started.  The area around the New River was flourishing with the coal miners, the families and companies.  Coal mining is no longer allowed due to the park but you can see go and tour some of the mining areas.  The various sections of the park has trails so please get a newspaper for the park and check out the trails.  Let’s hope the rain has stopped and hiking is an option.

New River gorge bridge
Fog over the river
Bridge from the bottom of the gorge

Fayette Station Road Tour –  The tour is a self tour via your vehicle that will take you from the visitor center, under the New River bridge and it exits you back onto highway 19 about 1 mile from your starting point at the visitor center.  The entire road tour is 8 miles in length and it will take about 45 minutes to travel without stopping, speed limit is 25 miles per hour.  The Canyon Rim visitor center has maps for you to use on your journey and if you use the NPS app you can get an audio tour to go along with the driving.  The driving tour is nice and there are 11 stops along the way.  The maps tell you the the road is not suitable for RV’s or trailers.  I asked the ranger and was told that Dundee would be fine since it was less than 14 feet high.  Trailers will be an issue as you have to cross railroad tracks and there is a hump before the tracks and after causing you to run aground or get stuck.  Please heed the warning of not taking your trailer on the road as there are plenty of road signs saying the same thing that the park service’s map tells you.  One of the stops along the journey is right underneath of the bridge and you could potentially get yourself a nice photo of the bridge.  It was foggy and raining when I was there so photos were not great.  You get to cross the river at a little steel and wooden bridge that is one lane, most of the road is one way traffic, but you can’t stop on the bridge to get a photo.  Have your traveling partner take the photo and drive slow.  The parking area for walking to the river was a bit damp and the water was flowing very heavily when I was there so I could not walk down to the river.  In fact I was a bit concerned that the bridge could get washed out with the fast flowing water that was well above flood stage.  It did not get washed out and I was able to finish the drive.  There are a few points along the way that are some tight hairpin turns which made the rational for small vehicles but Dundee was able to make the turns.

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