The New River Gorge National Park and Babcock State Park in West Virginia were our last stops of this trip.
Sandstone Falls on the New River (near the town of Hinton, WV)
Our first stop was the Sandstone Visitors Center to get passport book stamps and to learn about the park. The National Park is mostly about the history of the New River and the Gorge, and the preservation of some of the old towns along the river.
Got stamps for both New River Gorge and Gauley River. We didn’t visit the Gauley River on this trip but Daniel, Nathan and I rafted the Gauley River with Songer Whitewater (years ago) so I felt like I’d earned the stamp. Someday we’ll need to visit Harpers Ferry to fill out this page.
Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Catholics going to church together “…and we all got along good together and we all enjoyed church together.”
The area of the New River Watershed is huge. It begins at the very south end at a little spring near Blowing Rock, North Carolina. We had been at Blowing Rock while on the Blueridge Mountain Parkway several days before. From that little spring, water flows north and is joined by other rivers, including the Gauley, eventually joining the Ohio River, then the Mississippi; and finally ending up in the Gulf of Mexico. Interesting that one of our first stops on this trip was at Gulf State Park on the Gulf of Mexico and our last stop was here in West Virginia. It’s raining torrents at Babcock State Park now while I work on this post. This rainwater will wind up in the Gulf… which is a long way from here… I never would have guessed that long-distance relationship so stopping here helped me understand something more about how interconnected we are. The Little Buck Creek in our backyard in Indianapolis also winds up in the Ohio River so it mingles with water from that little spring at Blowing Rock, NC.
The park ranger said “no problem” to drive an RV to Sandstone Falls; “I’ve seen school buses down there”. The winding access road got narrower and narrower until it was just a single lane where we and oncoming traffic had to get well off the sides to get past each other. We made it, and it was worth the trouble.
There is a nice “boardwalk” for viewing the falls.
I thought it was just a short boardwalk out to an island with nice views of these falls.
Closeup of a small portion of Sandstone Falls
Then I realized the boardwalk kept going past the “minor falls” at the beginning to “the big falls” on the other side of the island at the end of the boardwalk.
Impressive Sandstone Falls on the New River
Glade Creek Grist Mill at Babcock State Park. Fully functional replica (built 1976) assembled from parts of three other mills. There were over 500 mills in West Virginia in early 1900’s. Read more about it here on the park’s website: https://wvstateparks.com/glade-creek-grist-mill-babcock/
Would like to come back to visit in the fall when it looks like this! Photo snip from website noted above. According to the website it is the most photographed mill in the US.
More pics of the mill. Getting these pics was providential. If we had known how small and tight the parking lot was we probably would not have taken the RV down to this mill. We just followed the sign that said entrance to Babcock State Park (which really meant just the entry to this mill and a bunch of cabins) and wiggled our way into a parking space. The campsites were at a different entrance further down the road. Alas, there were no signs telling us that…
Quintessential Appalachian mountain beauty.
Our nice private campsite overlooking a wooded ravine at Babcock State Park. We were happy to get to camp and relax after a day of driving mountain roads and navigating the mill parking lot.
Drifts of wildflowers at campsites looked like snow.
Wildflowers
I took a long exposure night photo with my phone while sitting outside at night. It turned out sort of watercolor-ish.
The next morning we visited the New River Gorge Bridge and Visitors Center as our last stop before heading home. It’s a beautiful structure. It’s intentionally not painted and meant to look rusty to minimize maintenance.
Completed in 1977, it was the tallest roadway bridge (876′ above the river) when it was built. It is still the third highest in the United States. It was also the world’s longest single span arch for 26 years. It is still the longest in the United States but there are four longer now in China.
This information plaque has a photo of the old bridge at the top which is still there but it was built down much closer to the river. The red line shows the crazy mountain road that took 45 minutes to navigate down the mountain and back up before the new bridge was built.
The gorge was a secluded area until lumbering, coal, and railroads changed all that.
Rapids on the New River.
One last selfie at New River Gorge Bridge Visitors Center looking down the gorge.
Kentucky has some big, yellow, bugs… they made a mess on the RV during the 400 mile drive home from New River Gorge, WV to Indianapolis, IN but it was good to be home.
DADart Photography 