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.
Fayetteville
The primary service town for the New River Gorge, built around a walkable courthouse square with climbing shops, rafting outfitters, restaurants and breweries. The New River Gorge Bridge is about four minutes north on US 19 and the Endless Wall trailhead about ten minutes east. Fayetteville hosts Bridge Day each October.
What's here
- Climbing shops and guide services
- Multiple rafting outfitters
- Breweries and a real restaurant scene
- Arrowhead Trails and Boy Scout riding
- Bridge Day host town
Lodging, food and gear in Fayetteville
Town-level listings for operators based here. Capped at four per basecamp page.
List your business hereWithin reach
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.
Endless Wall Trail
A 2.4-mile point-to-point trail along the gorge rim through hemlock and rhododendron, crossing Fern Creek on a footbridge and reaching Diamond Point, an exposed rock outcrop with a view up the gorge to the bridge.
Long Point Trail
About 3.2 miles round trip on mostly level old roadbed to a rock promontory below the rim, which provides the most-photographed view of the New River Gorge Bridge.
Arrowhead Trails
Purpose-built flow and cross-country mountain bike singletrack inside the national park near Fayetteville, built by the Boy Scouts and open to the public — a deliberate contrast to West Virginia's traditionally rugged riding, with bermed corners, rollers and progressive difficulty.
Beauty Mountain
A long band of high-quality Nuttall sandstone on the gorge rim above Fayetteville, with a concentration of classic moderate trad and sport routes and one of the best views from any belay in the East.
Best for
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.