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.
Bluestone National Scenic River
Local knowledge
Ten miles of protected river in a deep, wooded gorge between Bluestone Lake and Pipestem — the least-visited National Park Service unit in West Virginia and the quietest. Access is by trail from Pipestem or Bluestone State Park, or by the Pipestem tram.
The least-visited National Park Service unit in West Virginia. No road follows the gorge, so you walk in from Pipestem or Bluestone State Park, or ride the tram down.
More places like thisKnow before you go
- The Bluestone Turnpike Trail runs 8.5 miles through the gorge to Bluestone State Park
- Smallmouth fishing here is excellent and lightly pressured
What you can do here
The Bluestone Turnpike Trail runs 8.5 miles through the gorge, so walking here is linear and committing rather than a loop network. Get in by trail from Pipestem or Bluestone State Park, or ride the Pipestem tram down. Visitation is low, which means fewer people and less margin if something goes wrong.
Local organizations
Smallmouth here are excellent and lightly pressured, which is what happens in a gorge few people bother to walk into. Access means a trail descent or the tram, so plan to carry light. A West Virginia license and current regulations apply; check them with WVDNR before you go.
Local organizations
This is ten miles of river in a deep gorge between Bluestone Lake and Pipestem, and the roads do not follow it. That makes access and shuttle the first problem to solve, well before anything about the paddling itself. Ask the National Park Service which access points are usable at the level you plan to run.
Deep woods on both walls of the gorge with a river corridor running through them makes for layered habitat, and low visitation means quiet listening. May is the peak here as it is across the state. The Turnpike Trail gives you 8.5 miles of edge to work along at whatever pace suits you.
Ten protected miles of river in a wooded gorge with almost nobody in it is the reason to come look closely. The Park Service manages this as a scenic river rather than a developed park, so what you notice is largely your own doing. Ask the Park Service about services and access before you commit to a full day in the bottom.
Local organizations
Guides, gear and lodging near Bluestone National Scenic River
Place-level placement for operators within range of this trailhead, put-in or crag.
List your business hereNearby in the New River Gorge
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.
Grandview
1,400 feet above a horseshoe bend in the New, with a seven-mile view up the gorge — the widest perspective anywhere in the park.
Sandstone Falls
The largest waterfall on the New River — not tall, but 1,500 feet wide, spilling across the full breadth of the river between islands at the point where the gorge begins to open.
Kaymoor Miners Trail
A steep descent from the gorge rim to the ruins of the Kaymoor One coal mine and processing plant, including 821 wooden steps down the former haulage incline.
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.