The Best Hikes in New River Gorge National Park

The rim trails

Almost every great hike in the park works the same way: level walking on a plateau through second-growth hardwood, then an abrupt opening where the sandstone ends and the gorge is a thousand feet below you. Endless Wall is the purest version. The trail is easy and unremarkable until Diamond Point, where the forest simply stops.

Long Point is the other essential. It follows old roadbed for most of its 3.2 miles round trip, then a short scramble puts you on a narrow rock shelf out in the middle of the gorge with the New River Gorge Bridge directly in front of you. It is popular for good reason — go early or go late.

Grandview, in the southern unit near Beckley, has the most view for the least effort in the whole park. The main overlook is a paved walk from the car, and the rim trail continues past it into near-solitude within a few hundred yards. Turkey Spur Rock, further out the same road, climbs stairways onto a rock spine for separated views up and down the river.

The descents into the gorge

Going down means coming back up, and the gorge is a thousand feet deep. Kaymoor Miners Trail is the honest example: it drops to the remains of the Kaymoor mine complex on the river, including a very long stairway, and the return climb is the actual hike. It is worth it for the industrial archaeology, which is unlike anything else in the park system.

Nuttallburg is the other one to make time for. A coal conveyor runs straight up the hillside above the townsite, and the Seldom Seen and Keeneys Creek trails work through the ruins. Thurmond, across the river, is a near-intact railroad town that once had more freight revenue than Cincinnati.

Stone Cliff and Brooklyn give river-level walking without the elevation loss, and are the right choice on a hot day.

Quieter options

Butcher Branch and Craig Branch drop through rhododendron to waterfalls that most visitors never see. The Arrowhead Trails — Clovis, Adena, Dalton and LeCroy — were purpose-built for mountain biking and are open to hikers, with flowing grades and almost no crowd. Fayetteville Trail and Timber Ridge give pleasant forest walking close to town.

Babcock State Park, just outside the park boundary, deserves a day of its own. The Glade Creek Grist Mill is the most photographed building in West Virginia, and Island in the Sky is a short climb to a rim view over the gorge. Hawks Nest, further west on US 60, has a stone terrace above the river and a tram down to the water when it is running.

Practical notes

Parking is the constraint on the popular trails. Endless Wall has two lots and the Nuttall end fills first; start at Fern Creek. Long Point's lot is small.

The Rend Trail — the old rail grade formerly signed as Thurmond-Minden — is under full closure through roughly December 2027. It appears in older guidebooks and on trail apps as a regional classic. Do not drive to it.

Some trails have been renamed: Rend was Thurmond-Minden, Burnwood was Laing Loop. There are also two different Long Points and two Park Loop Trails in the wider area, which trips people up when navigating by app.

At a glance

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