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.
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. Formerly a state park, now an NPS unit. The rhododendron bloom in late May and early June is the best in the state, and the Turkey Spur rock outcrop adds a 360-degree climb up steel stairs.
Know before you go
- Turkey Spur Overlook is a short drive past the main lot and worth it
- The Grandview Rim Trail runs 1.6 miles along the edge
- Outdoor drama theatre operates here in summer
What you can do here
The Grandview Rim Trail runs 1.6 miles along the edge, 1,400 feet above a horseshoe bend in the New, with a seven-mile view up the gorge. Turkey Spur is a short drive past the main lot and adds steel stairs up a rock outcrop for a full circle. Late May and early June put you in the rhododendron bloom.
Overlooks here
Local organizations
Fourteen hundred feet of relief and a seven-mile view up the gorge give you depth that most overlooks cannot, and valley fog is the reason to be on the rim early. Turkey Spur's steel stairs lift you above the rim for a 360-degree frame. Rhododendron peaks in late May, and this is the best bloom in the state.
Overlooks here
Local organizations
Outdoor Photography across West Virginia →Rim forest above a 1,400-foot gorge wall, with 1.6 miles of trail along the edge to work slowly in the morning. Heavy rhododendron under the canopy shapes what you find below eye level. May is the peak month. Turkey Spur's outcrop gets you high enough to watch birds move across the gorge.
Overlooks here
Late May and early June bring the state's best rhododendron bloom, which is why most people time a visit here. Walk the 1.6-mile Rim Trail slowly rather than driving between overlooks. The Turkey Spur outcrop is different ground from the rim forest and worth the short drive past the main lot.
Overlooks here
Local organizations
Guides, gear and lodging near Grandview
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.
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.
Nuttallburg
An abandoned coal town at the bottom of the gorge with the most complete surviving coal conveyor and tipple complex in the country — a 1,385-foot inclined conveyor running straight up the hillside, once operated by Henry Ford.
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.