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.
Marlinton
The midpoint of the Greenbrier River Trail and the main service town of Pocahontas County. Shuttle operators, lodging and bike services are available here. Snowshoe Mountain, Cass Scenic Railroad, Cranberry Glades and the Highland Scenic Highway are all within about an hour.
What's here
- Trail shuttles and bike services
- Midpoint camping and lodging for end-to-end riders
- Gateway to Snowshoe and Cass
- Cranberry Glades and Highland Scenic Highway west
Lodging, food and gear in Marlinton
Town-level listings for operators based here. Capped at four per basecamp page.
List your business hereWithin reach
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.
Cass Scenic Railroad State Park
A preserved company logging town and a working fleet of Shay geared steam locomotives that climb the original grades to Whittaker Station and on to Bald Knob — at 4,842 feet the second-highest point in West Virginia, reachable by train.
Cranberry Glades Botanical Area
The largest area of bogs in West Virginia — sphagnum and cranberry peat bogs holding plant communities left behind after the last glaciation, more typical of Canada than the mid-Atlantic, including carnivorous sundews and pitcher plants.
Highland Scenic Highway
A 43-mile National Scenic Byway climbing over 4,500 feet across the Allegheny plateau between Richwood and US 219, with four major overlooks and access to Cranberry Glades, the Falls of Hills Creek and the Cranberry Wilderness.
Snowshoe Mountain
The largest ski resort in the mid-Atlantic, built upside-down: the village sits at 4,848 feet on the summit ridge of Cheat Mountain and you ski down from it.
Watoga State Park
West Virginia's largest state park at over 10,100 acres, built largely by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.
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.