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.
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. Reached by a narrow, steep, one-lane road from Winona.
Know before you go
- The access road is not suitable for trailers or RVs
- Interpretive trails loop through the town site and up to the tipple
- Combine with the Keeneys Creek Rail-Trail above
What you can do here
Interpretive trails loop through the town site at the bottom of the gorge and climb to the tipple, alongside the 1,385-foot inclined conveyor running straight up the hillside. Getting there is the hard part: a narrow, steep, one-lane road down from Winona, not suitable for trailers or RVs. The Keeneys Creek Rail-Trail above adds easier miles to the day.
Local organizations
The conveyor and tipple complex is the most complete left in the country, and the conveyor runs 1,385 feet up the hillside — a subject with a strong diagonal already built into it. The town dates to the 1870s and sits at the bottom of the gorge, so direct light arrives late and leaves early. Drive the one-lane road from Winona slowly.
Local organizations
Outdoor Photography across West Virginia →A coal town abandoned at the bottom of the gorge is a record of what a forest does to an industrial site over a century. The interpretive trails loop through the town site, where that process is most visible against structures still standing. Keeneys Creek Rail-Trail above extends the walk if you want more ground under you.
Local organizations
Guides, gear and lodging near Nuttallburg
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.