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.
Carnifex Ferry Battlefield State Park
Local knowledge
A Civil War battlefield on a bluff above the Gauley River with overlooks into the canyon and trails dropping toward the water. A quiet alternative to the heavily used whitewater sections a few miles downstream.
A quiet rim with a rare view into the Gauley canyon, a few miles from the busiest whitewater in the state.
More places like thisKnow before you go
- The Patteson Overlook gives a rare rim view of the Gauley gorge
What you can do here
Trails on this 156-acre battlefield drop from the bluff toward the Gauley, which means the return leg is a climb. The Patteson Overlook is where most walkers turn around — a rare rim view into the gorge. The park stays quiet compared with the heavily used whitewater sections a few miles downstream, and it is open year-round.
Local organizations
Patteson Overlook gives a rim view of the Gauley gorge that few places in the state offer, and a canyon like that collects fog and holds hardwood color. The 1861 battlefield ground is a subject in its own right. Light into a gorge is a matter of hour more than season, so plan for early or late.
Local organizations
Outdoor Photography across West Virginia →A bluff-top battlefield with trails dropping into the canyon covers two kinds of habitat in a short walk, from open ground to hardwood on the slope. May is the peak here as it is across West Virginia, with migrants moving and residents singing. No checklist is published for the park, so ask the office what has been turning up.
Guides, gear and lodging near Carnifex Ferry Battlefield State Park
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.