Park Number: 57/63

First Visited: November 25, 2021

If you mention New River Gorge around locals in the Appalachian area, you’ll most likely hear a salad-days story of rock climbing, kayaking, or rafting—all told with a nostalgic eye-glimmer recollection of adventure and danger. The gorge, if carved out by anything nonphysical, is a trough of memories. Even if you err on the side of safety, the region offers ample opportunities for remembrance: old coal towns, waterfalls, geological formations. I particularly enjoyed Castle Rock Trail and Sandstone Falls. Perhaps a future visit will find me floating down the New River or scaling up Bridge Buttress, but for the time being I’m perfectly content to have this newly upgrade national park as a first-rate reason to revisit West Virginia.

New River Gorge is ancestral lands to the Eastern Band of Cherokee, Tutelo, S'atsoyaha, and Moneton people.