National Parks and Recreation

So, in theory, this blogpost could have been titled New River Gorge National Park. You see, a few days ago with the passing of the latest covid relief bill, the New River Gorge region was designated an official national park. This would make it the 63rd National Park in the national park system. However, when I was there a couple weeks ago, it was still just a National River (plus, James would kill me if I went to a national park without him) so I’m just going to carry on as if this change hasn’t happened yet.

You may wonder how I found myself in rural West Virginia in the middle of a pandemic in mid-December. Well, my friend Canada just got a new puppy that she had to pick up from middle of nowhere Kentucky. The plan had originally been to fly into Nashville, hang out for several days and pick him up on our way home. However, it didn’t exactly work out that way. With cases spiking around the country, we decided it would be safest to just drive and do some car camping to avoid as much contact with the outside world as possible. (And after two weeks and several covid tests, we did it safely!)

Since this plan involved a LOT of driving, including one overnight with a brand-new puppy, of course I offered to come along. I never have and never will turn down a road trip! And this was going to be even better because I would be able to check off a new state: Kentucky. Three of my best girlfriends were supposed to get married in 2020 and I was going to check off several new states between various bachelorette parties and weddings, but alas, they were all cancelled. So I was pretty pumped that I would at least get to check off one new state!

So I began my portion of the trip by making the 4 hour drive up to Burlington, Vermont. And then we set off for West Virginia around 2pm. Our goal was to make it to Morgantown, West Virginia, about 11 hours away. It was a pretty easy and uneventful drive. It’s always disorienting doing long trips this time of year since the sun sets at like 4pm, but we made it to a Marriott parking lot by 1am and settled in to spend the night.

But it was an uneventful night and no one bothered us or tried to murder us or anything. And luckily, I was very used to camping out in the cold so doing this in 40˚ weather AND in a car was basically a sauna.

We really wanted to take the scenic route through West Virginia since both of us had only ever briefly driven through the state before. So I did a lot of research on the most scenic drives in the state and the New River Gorge area really stood out to me. Not only was there a famous bridge, but also a nice short hike with stunning views that would allow us to get out of the Prius and stretch our legs a little bit.

And I was SO happy with this decision! We started with the Beauty Mountain Trail. It was a tiny trailhead off a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. There were only spots for like 3 cars, but it was relatively cold (especially for Southerners) so we were the only people there.

The entire trail was less than a mile long with an incredible payoff.

Like, come on. Look at that view! We were towering nearly 900 feet above the New River. The line of rock cliffs on our side of the gorge in this picture is so cool to me. Gorges are fascinating!

We still had quite a bit of driving left ahead of us, but it was very difficult to not just sit and enjoy the view for hours. It was so peaceful.

It was very Horseshoe Bend-esque. It’ll be nice to come back and explore more of the area. There were quite a few people down on the river white water rafting. That would be amazing! I bet it’s an entirely different experience being down there looking up.

Eventually we did need to move on. We still wanted to check out the New River Gorge Bridge (which is just beyond that bend in the river in the above picture).

So back through the enchanted forest and to the car we went! It was a quick drive up the rural dirt roads to Canyon Rim Visitor Center. We were going to have to drive over the bridge in order to get to Kentucky, but we still wanted to get our scenic view before we went.

And I’m really glad we did! See all those stairs? There are 178 of them to be exact. And the view from the bottom was even more incredible. (Also worth noting: I did those 178 steps down and back up with EASE. I think it’s safe to say my legs have officially recovered from the Long Trail.)

Want some fun facts about the bridge? Of course you do! It was built in 1977 and was a huge engineering feat. To build something this grand in the middle of Nowhere, West Virginia is kind of crazy. It was the longest steel arch bridge in the WORLD until 2003 and is still the longest in the country. It’s also the third tallest bridge in the United States at 876 feet. Because of its location on the 53 mile long New River Gorge, trucking companies especially benefited from the construction of the bridge. Before its construction, cars and other smaller vehicles could take winding mountain roads down to a bridge just above the surface of the river and then would have to climb the steep road going up the other side (a 45 minute drive that the new bridge could do in less than 1 minute of driving.) This was not possible for giant trucks. (Next time I go back though I will definitely be taking that road down to the bottom. I bet the view looking up at the bridge from the water is very cool!) Major trucking companies claimed to save nearly $3,000 a DAY in fuel and wages because the bridge cut off 500 miles a week of driving. Pretty cool stuff!

We definitely would’ve spent more time checking out the visitor center if it weren’t for covid, but instead we stayed in the safe outdoors. Plus, the sun was starting to go down and we had places to get in Kentucky in order to get some bourbon before they closed. Priorities!

With our bourbon and ramen noodles, we had a lovely night of camping in the POURING rain. We got an actual campsite and were hoping to be able to stretch out and eat at a picnic table and hang out, but the rain did not let up. Luckily, we could at least leave the cooler out on the picnic table overnight so I slept so much better with the added leg room. I was getting pretty used to this whole car camping thing!

And then it was time for the main event: picking up the puppy!

Meet Kratos. Atlas’s new little brother. I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot of hiking adventures with him moving forward, but he’s never going to be this small and adorable again and it makes me really sad.

With the new puppy in tow, we began the 19 hour drive home (while also losing an hour in the time zone change). But we powered through!

And overall it was a really fun couple of days! One of the things I’ve missed most about this pandemic is our stupid long road trips halfway across the country to go to some random sporting event. This definitely satisfied that craving. There’s nothing better than tapping in for a 10:30pm-5:30am overnight driving shift through rural Pennsylvania! No? Just me? Suit yourselves. All in all, we did 48 hours of driving in 96 hours, 2,996 miles, and 9 different states. Not too bad at all!

And I am very excited to go back to beautiful West Virginia (this time with James) and drive even more scenic mountain roads and explore more of this beautiful future national park.