A few days before Sukkos we narrowed down our potential Chol Hamoed destination to either Acadia National Park in Maine, or New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia.
The perk of visiting Acadia National Park is its beautiful Fall foliage, which was at its peak in October, and the general beauty of the park. The downside of visiting Acadia was that we had both been to Acadia before (although my husband has not yet seen it in its Fall glory), campgrounds were closed for the season (they literally closed that day), and that reservations to drive up to Cadillac Mountain were all sold out.
The perks of visiting New River Gorge was that entry to the park is free (usually this is a non-issue as we purchase an America the Beautiful pass, but ours had just expired after a full summer of traveling, and knowing that we were unlikely to visit more national parks over the winter we were hoping to defer the purchase of a new pass til early Spring), campgrounds are free and require no reservations, and the weather was going to be warmer. Additionally, we had never been to New River Gorge, nor to West Virginia, so this would allow us to experience a new National Park and check another State off our list (I’m currently at 41 states!). On the downside, New River Gorge is not comparable to Acadia in beauty.
On Motzei Shabbos Chol Hamoed, after confirming once again that no reservations had opened up for Cadillac Mountain in Acadia, we settled on visiting West Virginia. After a full summer of honing our expertise at car camping, and with our popup Sukkah packed and ready, we headed out to start the 8-hour drive towards New River Gorge National Park. We drove 2.5 hours, well into Pennsylvania, before pulling over for the night at a rest area on the I-81. The temps outside were a perfect 42F, and within minutes of setting up the car we were sleeping comfortably.
The next morning, after davening and a hearty breakfast,
we continued past Maryland, and then into West Virginia. We made it to New River Gorge National Park at about 5PM, and while the foliage wasn’t eye popping, the colors were nice, and the temp was a perfect 68F without a cloud in sight.
We had about 1.5 hours til sunset, so we set out for Endless Wall Trail. We walked 1 mile to Diamond Point Overlook, with its stunning views, and then doubled back.
We then headed to the New River Gorge Bridge Overlook for sunset.
With the sun down, we headed to the U-Save Travel Plaza Restaurant for a shower and some firewood. While the showers were clean and the water pressure was good, the room was old and run down, and not very palatable. Of all our roadside showers, this definitely ranked in the lowest five.
Feeling refreshed, we headed to Gauley Tailwaters Campground to claim a spot for the night (all camping spots in New River Gorge are free and first come first serve). The spots were close together- closer than we were used to in National Park campgrounds, but each spot had a picnic table and fire pit. We set up the sukkah and enjoyed some instant soup and dinner sandwiches alongside our campfire. Even though it was off-season, and while the campground was mostly empty when we pulled in, all spots ended up being claimed for the night.
After an amazing night’s sleep (temps dipped down to the low 30s), we woke up to a beautiful sunny morning. After davening and breakfast, we were on our way to check out the park.
Note: if staying at Gauley Tailwaters Campground choose a spot on the river side so that you’re not facing the sun directly when it comes up.We passed some nice views on our drive out of the campgrounds:
Our first stop of the day was at Canyon Rim Visitor Center, which was surprisingly full.
From the visitor center we headed to Long Point Trailhead, a 3.2-mile hike with beautiful panoramic views of the gorge and New River Gorge Bridge. A ranger at the visitor center warned us that this is a popular trail, and that parking is usually unavailable, but we decided to head out anyway, and luckily there was plenty of parking available. The weather was in the low 70s, with sunny skies all around, and the trail took us approximately 1.5 hours to complete.
We met a Jewish couple on the trail who informed us that on Rotan St, in the town of Fayetteville, there is a memorial for a Seder that was held on the spot by Civil War soldiers from Ohio. Since it was on our way, we hopped out of the car to check it out.
We then headed to the Grandview section of the park, to the Main Overlook. This part of the park is a lot quieter, and we enjoyed the views.
From the main overlook we headed onto Castle Rock Trail, and returned through Grandview Rim Trail, creating a 1.2-mile loop. Castle Rock Trail is considered one of the “must do” hikes in New River Gorge, but I was underwhelmed. It was cool to see the towering cliffs and the exposed coal seams, but it wasn’t extraordinary.
From there we headed to the Sandstone section of the park. Based on the pictures I had seen before, Sandstone Falls Overlook is supposed to be beautiful, but in reality the overlook is very high up above the river, so the falls were barely visible from that perspective.
I’d been hoping to walk along Sandstone Falls Boardwalk, which is level with the water and has great views (seemingly), but it required an additional hour of driving since we’d had to drive a few miles to the closest bridge, cross over, and then drive back along the other side. After hiking several miles over the day, the thought of driving another hour to hike another few miles wasn’t too exciting, so we decided to skip it.
We headed to Sandstone Visitor Center, which had already closed for the day, to put up our sukkah and take advantage of the picnic tables on the grounds. We set up a disposable grill, had some delicious fish cooked in minutes, and after a filling dinner, headed East towards home.
If you’re planning a trip to New River Gorge National Park, there are several historic abandoned mining towns that are in the park proper, which can be accessed via hiking trails. Additionally, you can drive on the old bridge, down in the gorge, which was used by residents before the New River Gorge Bridge was constructed in 1977- the new bridge reduced transit time from 40 minutes, to less than a minute! The New River Gorge Bridge does not have a pedestrian walkway and is open to pedestrians just once a year in October, on Bridge Day, which did not coincide with the day we were there. There is a tour operator in the area that does tours on the bridge’s maintenance catwalk for $75/pp. (https://bridgewalk.com/bridge-walk-tour/)We had originally planned to drive just an hour or two before pulling over for the night, but since we were on the road by 7PM, we decided to see how far we could go before the fatigue set in. Several hours into the drive the ETA, which had been steadily decreasing, suddenly started climbing. Zooming into Google Maps, we noticed that a massive accident had occurred, which was apparently blocking all lanes on the I-81. At the last possible minute, with traffic nearing to a standstill, we decided to take the exit off the interstate. As soon as we were off the interstate Google Maps dropped our ETA back down, and rerouted us back onto the I-81, just past the accident point (we saw no other cars on the interstate for several minutes after merging back on, as the interstate was fully closed). At 1AM we were still going strong, so we decided to continue pushing on to home, instead of pulling over for the night.
I hope you enjoyed this Trip Report- looking forward to writing my next one soon!
