Where to hike, paddle, climb and ride in West Virginia
Activities
Rivers & Whitewater
- Whitewater Rafting
- Whitewater Kayaking
- Recreational Kayaking
- Canoeing
- Tubing
- Water Trails
- Swimming Holes
Lakes & Flatwater
- Stand-Up Paddleboarding
- Flatwater Paddling
- Boating & Motorboating
- Sailing
Hiking & Trails
- Hiking
- Backpacking
- Trail Running
- Road Running
- Horseback Riding
Biking & Rail-Trails
- Mountain Biking
- Gravel Biking
- Rail Trails
Winter Sports
- Downhill Skiing
- Snowboarding
- Cross-Country Skiing
- Snowshoeing
- Sledding & Tubing Hills
Plan a trip
Rather filter it yourself? Pick an activity, a region and a season →
When are you coming?
Season decides more here than anywhere else — several of the marquee activities run on a calendar.
Locations
Nine regions, and the parks, wildernesses, rivers, lakes, rail-trails and climbing areas inside them. The regions are very different places: high country and snow in the Potomac Highlands, a milder Blue Ridge climate in the Eastern Panhandle, and a thousand miles of off-road trail in the southern coalfields.
Select a region for its trails, rivers and organizations.
New River Gorge
The New River has cut a gorge roughly 1,000 feet deep through Nuttall sandstone, protected since 2020 as New River Gorge National Park and Preserve.
Your outfitter listed here
Guided whitewater, climbing and fishing operators. Featured placement on the New River Gorge region page and on every whitewater activity page.
List your business hereYour lodging or shop listed here
Cabins, campgrounds, lodges, shuttles, gear and rentals. Regional placement matched to the nearest trailheads and put-ins, with a direct booking link.
List your business herePhotographs from readers who tagged us. Nothing reposted, nothing borrowed — every frame here belongs to whoever took it, credited and linked.
Named trails with the length, climb and difficulty each agency publishes, and the put-ins and take-outs on the ten major rivers.
82 named trails, 19 systems
Wilderness areas, rail-trails, state park networks and the national park, grouped by the system they belong to, with trailhead road access and what the agency does not publish marked as such.
Open the trail list → River access61 access points, 10 rivers
The New, Gauley, Greenbrier, Cheat, Tygart, Elk, South Branch, Cacapon, Bluestone and Meadow, with the reach each site serves and the class of water it puts you on.
Open river access →West Virginia charges no admission at any state park or forest. The system carries most of the state's cabin lodging and family camping, and includes the Almost Heaven Swings installed at scenic overlooks across the state.
Blackwater Falls State Park
A 57-foot falls where the Blackwater River drops into an eight-mile canyon, its water stained amber by hemlock and spruce tannins.
State ParkWatoga State Park
West Virginia's largest state park at over 10,100 acres, built largely by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.
State ParkBabcock State Park
Home of the Glade Creek Grist Mill, the most photographed building in West Virginia — a working reconstruction assembled from parts of three historic mills, sitting on a boulder-strewn creek.
State ParkPipestem Resort State Park
A full resort park perched above the Bluestone Canyon, with an aerial tram descending 1,100 feet to a lodge on the river — the only state park tram in West Virginia.
More than a hundred wildernesses, crags, rivers, rail-trails, caves and overlooks, each with its activities, access notes and seasonal considerations.
Dolly Sods Wilderness
A 17,371-acre federally designated wilderness on a plateau largely above 4,000 feet, containing wind-flagged red spruce, heath barrens, sphagnum bog and exposed rock.
New River Gorge Bridge
A 3,030-foot steel arch carrying US 19 some 876 feet above the New River — for decades the longest single-span arch bridge in the world, and still the image most people carry of West Virginia.
Greenbrier River Trail
Seventy-eight miles from Cass to Caldwell on a former Chesapeake & Ohio logging grade, crossing 35 bridges by the state park's count and passing through 2 tunnels, following the Greenbrier River the entire way.
Seneca Rocks
A 900-foot fin of near-vertical Tuscarora quartzite standing above the North Fork of the South Branch — the most recognizable rock formation in the eastern United States and the only true summit in the East that can only be reached by technical climbing.
Coopers Rock State Forest
A 12,747-acre state forest above the Cheat River Canyon.
Summersville Lake
West Virginia's largest lake and by a wide margin its clearest — 2,700 acres of blue-green water in a sandstone basin, popular for scuba diving, paddleboarding and boating.
Ten routes with day-by-day plans, the places on each and the season that suits them.
Gauley Season Weekend
Six weekends a year, Summersville Dam opens and the Gauley carries the most concentrated whitewater in the eastern United States.
New River Gorge
2–3 days · Jun–OctDolly Sods Backpacking Loop
Heath barrens, sphagnum bog, wind-flagged spruce and tannin-dark creeks on a plateau above 4,000 feet.
Potomac Highlands
3 days · Apr–OctGreenbrier River Trail End to End
Seventy-eight miles, thirty-five bridges, two tunnels and a gradient under one percent.
Greenbrier Valley
Permit and license requirements, common hazards, drive times and road access, and a glossary of local terms.
Ten towns that work as a base for a trip, with the activities each suits and the destinations within driving range.
Sutton
A small county seat on the Elk River directly off I-79, at the geographic center of the state.
Fayetteville
The primary service town for the New River Gorge, built around a walkable courthouse square with climbing shops, rafting outfitters, restaurants and breweries.
Davis & Thomas
Two former coal and timber towns about two miles apart in Tucker County.
Lewisburg
A preserved eighteenth-century downtown with restaurants, galleries and a theatre, located at the southern end of the Greenbrier River Trail and in the middle of the state's most significant karst.
What is West Virginia best known for outdoors?
Do I need a permit to hike or camp in West Virginia?
When should I visit West Virginia?
Is cell service reliable in West Virginia backcountry?
Who maintains West Virginia's trails and river access?
Every organization we link to: local tourism offices, the state and federal agencies that manage the land, the nonprofits and clubs that keep access open, and the universities doing the research.
West Virginia has roughly 1.5 million acres of public land and a handful of places that carry almost all of the attention. The consequence is that a great deal of very good ground sits nearly empty, usually for one of three reasons: nobody has heard of it, the road in is gated or rough, or it is undeveloped and has nothing to advertise. Those are the places below — of them across regions.