[New River Gorge NP, Apr 11, 2025]

Two weeks into my trip, I was finally on the way to New River Gorge National Park – my 49th! I knew that spring weather might be tricky, so I allowed myself 3 full days in the park. This seemed like a lot when I planned the trip, but it turned out to be a good call. The forecast called for a cold front to move through the area and possibly bring some rain. I even had to borrow some warm clothes from my friend (a sweatshirt, hat, leggings) because the low temps were supposed to dip into to upper 30s!

The drive from Mooresville, NC to the park was super easy and it took less than 3 hours. On this first partial day, I decided to do the southern side of the park, which included Sandstone Falls and the Grandview area.

Sandstone Falls is the largest waterfall on the New River and spans it where it is 1500 ft wide. Sandstone Falls marks the transition of the New River from a broad river to large bottomlands to a narrow mountain river going through a v-shaped gorge. Several boardwalks provide access to viewpoints of Sandstone Falls.

From there, I followed the scenic Router 20 to the historic town of Hinton. A former booming railroad center, the town has a museum, antique shops and restaurants. Some trees were in full bloom and I was tempted to stop, but I didn’t in the end. I didn’t know it yet but it turned out to be a good call.

My next stop was the Sandstone Visitor Center. It was built in 2003 on a site that previously housed a school. It had excellent exhibits on the New River watershed. I especially loved the gorge carveouts and the display showing the different layers of rock in the area, including coal. The park movie talked at length about the history of coal mining here. This is how this once remote region finally became populated. Unfortunately, with it came a lot of pollution and deforestation.

From there, it was a 20-minute drive to the Grandview area. There are several trails here and a great overlook of the deepest section of the gorge. The cloud cover was low but the view from the overlook was still awesome. It looked like the East Coast version of Horseshoe Bend in Arizona.

Next, I did the Castle Rock Trail. This 1.1-mile trail was marked as moderately challenging, with some reviews even calling it hard. I don’t know why I was nervous doing it, it was actually easy! One half of the loop went below the rim along some pretty awesome rock walls. There was some tricky footing and a very short scramble at the end to go back up to the top of the rim, but there was nothing challenging about it. Maybe a little bit of heights exposure, that’s it. As I was on the trail, I was thinking that the only thing that would make this trail challenging would be bad weather, like rain or fog.

On the way back to the parking lot, on the upper part of the trail, I happened upon an overlook and I could tell the cloud cover had gotten even lower and that fog was coming in. I was glad I was no longer in that lower section of the trail!

By the time I returned to the overlook, there was no visibility whatsoever. Had I arrived here a mere 30 minutes later, I would have not seen anything! It made me glad I did not stop back in Hinton.

By this time, I could check into my hotel, Tru by Hilton in Beckley, WV. I grabbed some pretty yummy Mexican food nearby, then spent the rest of the afternoon and evening watching the fog outside my window and shuffling around my plans for the next couple of days. The next day was going to be off to a very cold start, so my plan was to spend the morning with indoor activities in Beckley and the afternoon in the park.