New River Gorge

The final destination on our American east coast adventure was the New River Gorge, or just the “New” as it seems to be called. We’d chosen to visit particularly because we hoped the seasonal autumn colours would be on full show at their best – we weren’t let down, it’s a beautiful place…

A rainy start – historic Thurmond

We were pretty lucky with the weather in general on our trip, just a single damp day at Seneca Rocks (we managed a hike and scramble to summit ridge however) and our first day in the New River Gorge was a properly wet day! So after running between buildings for breakfast – to avoid a total soaking from the stair rods of rain – we went to the visitor centre and got the beta on the drive down to and over the original (rebuilt) low level New River bridge, and then on to Thurmond for a bit of historic railway and mining interest.

The historic railway and mining Thurmond, now a ghost town…
Laetitia at the New River Gorge visitor centre bridge overlook
Laetitia posing at the fun Fayetteville town sign

New River Rock Climbing

After our rainy day the weather forecast for the remainder of our trip was set fair and sunny! We went rock climbing…

Tattoo Wall

Pete climbing our first route at the New River Bridge – it was a cold day in the shade, esp. after the previous day’s rain, maybe only 9°C

Kaymoor Slabs

Laetitia descending the ladders that lead, eventually, to the Kaymoor Slabs climbing area
Pete on the tricky and long route Fool Effect at Kaymoor Slabs

Whippoorwill

The view from the Whippoorwill climbing area out on to a small section of Summersville Lake

New River Mountain Biking

On our final day we decided to sample a different type of activity. Ideally, being in the New River Gorge, we would have liked to sample what is billed as some of the best white water rafting in the US. However, the previous weekend to our arrival was Bridge Day (each year the bridge is closed to traffic and people get to walk, abseil, and BASE jump from the bridge – some 267m above the river itself)! Bridge Day traditionally marks the end of the tourist season in the New River area. As such pretty much everything was shut or shutting! This made for a quiet climbing experience for us without the crowds at the classic, and therefore popular, climbing spots we’d picked out. But it blew out any chance of an economical white water rafting experience. It nearly blew out our chances of going mountain biking too as the town centre New River Bikes had sold off their fleet of hire bikes! Luckily though Arrowhead Bike Farm was still operational…

Pete setting off on the start of the mountain biking trail to the Long Point overlook…
Laetitia and Pete at the Long Point overlook of the New River Gorge bridge
Laetitia on the Kaymoor trail
Pete on the Kaymoor trail

Kaymoor Mine

Laetitia on her hired mountain bike on the trail at Kaymoor mine
We committed to the 800+ steps down to (and back up from) the derelict Kaymoor mine processing site
Inside the Kaymoor mine processing buildings, now derelict, and full of interest (and danger, it’s failing down!)