New River Gorge National Park and Preserve

In the early 1970s, my family relocated from Pittsburgh to Charleston, WV. Shortly afterward, my father and I became active in the West Virginia Scenic Trails Association, a hiking and trail building group centered in Charleston. At the time, the organization was building a new long-distance trail – the Allegheny Trail – through the mountains of eastern West Virginia.

My father and I headed out of Charleston early one weekend morning, driving east on US 60, heading to join a work party later in the morning. For many miles, US 60 follows the Kanawha River through numerous small towns, and past numerous chemical and other plants. In the early morning darkness, these plants tended to glow red through windows and doors, as they spewed pollutants into the valley air. The fiery red appearance, with the smoke, and smell, and noise prompted my father to call them “entrances to hell itself” as we passed by.

Yet within 45 minutes, US 60 began a winding climb up the steep side of the hills bordering the north side of the river. We had passed through Gauley Bridge, where the New River meets the Gauley River, forming the Kanawha. The New River gorge quickly becomes too narrow to support communities along the banks, hence the climb to the farmlands above the gorge.

Shortly after reaching the top, we would pass, and often stop at, Hawk’s Nest State Park, a park clinging to the edge of the hillside with fantastic views into the gorge. Railroad tracks followed the river’s edge deep in the gorge, and we would often be leaning on the railing of the overlook, listening to the distant sounds of a train approaching “way down there”.

There wasn’t much else here at that time.

That began to change in 1977.

The New River Gorge Bridge was completed just to the east of Hawks Nest. This engineering marvel was the world’s longest single-span arch bridge for 26 years. US 19 no longer had to follow a winding, two-lane road into the gorge and back out. It now zoomed over the gorge, cutting over 20 minutes off a trip to Beckley.

The bridge brought curious onlookers, and a Visitor’s Center and observation area were built for people to learn about and photograph the bridge. In 1978, the National Park Service established the New River Gorge National River and expanded the facilities for visitors. In 2020, a portion of the National River was redesignated National Park, with the rest redesignated National Preserve. The Preserve covers a large area extending to near I-64 in the south. Two smaller Visitor’s Centers are located in the southern section, with the aptly named Grandview Visitor’s Center presiding over a stunning view of the gorge in a huge horseshoe curve.

The New River itself is an anomaly. From its headwaters in southwestern Virginia, it flows mostly north into West Virginia eventually turning west to empty into the Kanawha. This makes it one of the few northerly flowing rivers in North America. It was also perhaps poorly named! Living in West Virginia, I recall hearing quite often about how the New River is actually one of the oldest rivers in the world | continent | country (take your pick). However, an online article from the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey casts some doubt.

The article doesn’t flat out dispel the ancient age of the river but indicates that several factors make dating the age difficult. The article makes a case for the river being between 3 and 320 million years old, quite a range. Nonetheless, the Park Service on its webpage still refers to the New River as “…one of the world’s oldest rivers…”. Whatever age it is, it’s been there for a while.

On a beautiful summer day, the Canyon Rim Visitor’s Center was quite busy. From there, you can follow a trail to stairs descending down the side of the gorge ending at an overlook of both the gorge and the nearby bridge. Going down the stairs was easy. Going back up the 170+ steps was a little more difficult, but I made it.

After leaving the Visitor’s Center, I decided to go into the gorge. In all the years I had lived nearby and passed by here, I never took the road down to the river. On this day, I did. The road was actually in very good shape, though very narrow and winding, as expected. There were frequent pull-offs where I jumped out and took some photos, often of the bridge as I passed under it twice on the switchbacks. Upon reaching the bottom, I crossed some active railroad tracks and proceeded onto a narrow, wooden surfaced bridge across the rapidly flowing river.

Once across, there was a small parking area which allowed access to the river bank itself, where more photos were snapped! From here, one actually looks up to the Gorge Bridge – literally – and really gets a feel for just how high that bridge is. One day each year, the bridge is closed to vehicles, as people are invited to walk across – and JUMP OFF – the bridge (bungee jumping, that is).

I followed the road up the south side of the gorge and eventually joined US 19 toward Beckley. With lots of time left in my day, I took I-64 east to visit the other two Visitor’s Centers for the Park. These are far less visited than the Canyon Rim, though the view from Grandview Visitor’s Center is spectacular. I made a panorama shot from it that will occasionally appear on my website’s home page.

This was a nice visit back to an area I’ve known for 50 years. Nice to see how it’s grown up.

Steve