Day 31-New River National Park and Preserve

 We spent our whole day exploring New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, our nation’s newest national park.  The park includes the lands along 53 miles of West Virginia’s New River, which contrary to its name is one of the oldest in the world.  

The river drops over 750 feet from one end of the park to the other, making it very popular for white water rafting and kayaking.  The gorge averages 1000 feet in depth, which makes it great for rock climbers, and the park hosts over 1500 species of plants and animals.  Due to pollution from lumbering, coal mining, and railroads in the 1800’s the river was known as the Ink River, but in the 1920's efforts to clean up the river began, and the river is now extremely clean.

Our first stop for the day was at the Glade Creek Gristmill which is part of Babcock State Park.  As the swing in the picture reminds you and as John Denver sang, West Virginia is “almost heaven.”  As we drove up and down the steep road along the eastern side of the river, I cranked up John Denver’s Greatest Hits which include:  Country Roads, The Eagle and the Hawk, Rocky Mountain High, etc.  I must admit I tear up listening to him; what a talent, what a loss!

Leaving the Gristmill, our next stop was the Sandstone Falls Visitor Center.  A very helpful ranger highlighted the “must see’s” in the park, and even suggested where we could pick up some sandwiches for a picnic lunch. We watched a short film on the history of the park and hit the road.

 

The floor of the Visitor Center was a map of the park!

Continuing  along the eastern edge of the river we came to the charming town of Hinton where we purchased some sandwiches.  The homes in many of the small towns along these rivers are built right into hill sides, making grass mowing and lawn bowling a real challenge.  

If you look closely along the crown molding you'll notice there's an electric train; just like the 6A Cafe.

Continuing south from Hinton we paralleled the river to where it intersects the Bluestone River which is designated a National Scenic River.  We pulled into a mostly empty campground there, and set up our chairs and table for a delightful lunch right along the banks of the river.

 

Our picnic spot

We then headed north along the western edge of the New River, traveling about ten miles and enjoying the views at every pullover until we discovered that we were on a dead end.  So we had to retreat back to Hinton and drive up the eastern side again.  We didn’t mind one bit, the views are different from that direction.

This is just a 20 second video of our trip down the 10 mile dead end, but as the pictures below the video show, we enjoyed some incredible views along the way.

We stopped at Tamarack where to check out the Appalachian Arts and Crafts shop.  Joni was in heaven, as John Denver says.  I waited patiently in the van.

 

Resuming our park exploration we then stopped at the Canyon Rim Visitor Center, watched a different  11 minute film about the history of the park, and then hiked down to an overlook of the New River Gorge Bridge.  The bridge is the third highest bridge in the US; it’s the equivalent of two Statues of Liberty stacked on top of the Washington Monument.  Yikes…I actually drove over it twice today!  Such heights still make me queasy, but I can now deal with them without having a panic attack.

Leaving the Visitor Center we drove to nearby Fayetteville, a small town with an abundance of outdoor sporting equipment stores, where he had a sit down dinner of Indian food at “Wonderlust Creative Food”.  Their chicken tikka marsala was second to none, but not really blog photo worthy.

 

We returned to our campground, arriving around 6:30 PM, and thoroughly impressed with the beauty of this national park.  It’s a gem!