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.
Stuart Recreation Area
Local knowledge
A CCC-built recreation area on the Shavers Fork near Elkins with a campground, picnic shelters and river access — the practical basecamp for the central Monongahela National Forest and the Otter Creek and Cheat Mountain country.
A CCC-built basecamp on the Shavers Fork that locals use for the Otter Creek and Cheat Mountain country, ten minutes from resupply in Elkins.
More places like thisKnow before you go
- Close to Elkins for resupply
- Shavers Fork holds trout upstream and smallmouth lower down
What you can do here
Built by the CCC in the 1930s on the Shavers Fork, this campground works as the practical basecamp for the central Monongahela National Forest and the Otter Creek and Cheat Mountain country. Elkins is close enough for resupply, which is not true of most forest campgrounds. Federal sites book through Recreation.gov, so check availability before driving out.
The Shavers Fork runs past the campground, holding trout upstream and smallmouth lower down, so where you park on the river determines what you fish for. That split gives you a fallback when summer warms the lower water. Elkins is close for flies and licenses. Check current WVDNR regulations for the stretch you plan to work.
Local organizations
Nothing about the recreation area itself is a hiking destination; its value is position. This is the basecamp for the Otter Creek and Cheat Mountain country and the central Monongahela National Forest, with Elkins nearby for resupply. Pick your trailheads from the forest map and use the site on the Shavers Fork as the place you sleep.
Local organizations
The campground is CCC-built from the 1930s, which usually means loops laid out long before big rigs existed, and no hookup or site-length details appear in the record. Elkins is close for supplies and dump-station questions. Call the Monongahela National Forest district office about maximum RV length and available hookups before you commit to towing in.
River access on the Shavers Fork comes with the recreation area, and the river is a mountain freestone that holds trout upstream — cold water, in other words. No designated swimming area or depth information is published here. Look at the river before you plan an afternoon on it, and treat any pool as unsupervised, because there is no guard.
Guides, gear and lodging near Stuart Recreation Area
Place-level placement for operators within range of this trailhead, put-in or crag.
List your business hereNearby in the Potomac Highlands
Dolly Sods Wilderness
A 17,371-acre federally designated wilderness on a plateau largely above 4,000 feet, containing wind-flagged red spruce, heath barrens, sphagnum bog and exposed rock.
Bear Rocks Preserve
The northern edge of the Dolly Sods plateau, owned by The Nature Conservancy: bare Pottsville sandstone slabs, one-sided spruce sculpted by prevailing wind, and blueberry heath dropping east into the Allegheny Front with a 3,000-foot view over the Potomac Highlands.
Spruce Knob
At 4,863 feet, the highest point in West Virginia and the high point of the entire Allegheny range.
Seneca Rocks
A 900-foot fin of near-vertical Tuscarora quartzite standing above the North Fork of the South Branch — the most recognizable rock formation in the eastern United States and the only true summit in the East that can only be reached by technical climbing.
Seneca Creek Backcountry
A network of trails below Spruce Knob following Seneca Creek through spruce and northern hardwood to a series of waterfalls, the largest around 20 feet.
Blackwater Falls State Park
A 57-foot falls where the Blackwater River drops into an eight-mile canyon, its water stained amber by hemlock and spruce tannins.
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.