Saturday, May 13
The next morning our streak of great weather ran out, it was raining off and on outside, but you could tell (and the weather forecast backed us up) that the trend was towards more and more rain and we’d better get used to it. So we did.
The Holiday Inn apparently sometimes did breakfast buffets and sometimes had waitressed breakfasts, probably depending on how many staff they had that morning. That morning was a buffet and we fueled up on bacon and eggs for a good hike. Sarah had a side of biscuits and gravy, but I declined. At one restaurant she was asked if she wanted white or brown gravy on her mashed potatoes. What a question!
We looked at weather forecasts and maps for a little bit. We could make a major decision to skip the New River and instead head further South right away, but the forecast to the South was just the same, and we had been told we *had* to see “The Bridge.” And so we did, who cares about rain?
It was a good-sized and rainy drive from Beckley up to the Canyon Rim VC, but fine for an early morning. Just before the VC we passed over the bridge, which we couldn’t see well at that point … we couldn’t see anything well with the mist and the rain! But we parked at the small, crowded VC, and saw their excellent short video about the history of the area. We got some maps and some info, then were some of the only people to head out for their overlook, which was a winding set of stairways that took us down and down on the side of the gorge, to where we had a great view of the bridge and the river … supposedly.
The rain continued to spit, drizzle, mist, and shower on and off, and we brought umbrellas out onto the series of platforms descending from the trail by the VC. But we put the umbrellas away and just glorified in the terrarium we were in the middle of. The platforms and stairways hugged the steep bank, with beeches and maples and who knows what growing out of it. Could have been some bears in there. We went down and down the stairs among scents of the wet dirt and the new trees into the gorge where the mists danced around like sprites. Up above us was the new bridge, with a steady traffic drone, but it was almost like another sprite, showing views of its steel architecture when the mist blew by, and the traffic sound receded as we went lower and lower. And down way below us still was the river, suddenly visible when the curtains of mist parted. We knew it was treacherous and had rapids and rocks, and we could hear it faintly, gurgling down below.
Back up the stairs and it wasn’t as bad a climb as the signs had warned. Glad we were there when there wasn’t a long line of people going down and struggling back up. It was still mid-morning when we got back to the car, and we drove the few miles up and down narrow and treacherous roads to the trailhead we really had our eyes on, the Endless Wall Trail in the Canyon Rim section of the Park. And we’d chosen wisely.
We were a little surprised that the parking lot at the trailhead was half full, we had expected it to be deserted. But it was Saturday and, though raining, this was the place to be. We put on slickers, mine not waterproof, but it was already hot and humid and I didn’t want to over-gear for this trail. We had lots of water and granola bars with us and were ready for a long hike, and it was glorious, super muddy and wet!
On that trail you start off through magical stands of big trees, with light shining through them onto the forest floor. After a mile or so we were out on the canyon rim, traversing it to the South, and every once in a while there was a side trail out to the rim itself … don’t take one step too far! There were extraordinary stands of beautiful, purple and red rhododendrons, and flowering shrubs of yellow and orange. Beech and oak and who knows trees abounded and every once in a while we heard the sound of the river railroad far below, or got bombarded by raindrops.
The clay was astounding too, sandy and bright yellow in some places and then loamy and dark in others. In some low places on the trail, different colors of clay swirled together. We were walking on the green lava rocks we’d seen in Virginia, but this was upheaval up on the rim and at the bottom of the gorge old, old geology was exposed. We passed and were passed by a few groups, all younger than us except one grandma-daughter-kids group where the grandma was our age and was enjoying the trail as much as we were.
Besides the scenic overlooks, where we could see mist, trees, cliffs, and sometimes the river below, there were rock-climbing gaps. The Endless Wall part of the Park is a rock-climbing mecca, though we saw no climbers that day. We checked out a few of the rock-climbing sites though, and there were ladders and anchors for ropes that led to some pretty spectacular drops.
At one overlook the mist was clearing and we could see down to the tracks below, and to an endless freight train, lumbering up the New River. Several young people joined us at the overlook and took pictures, one doing a yoga pose right on the edge of the rock. Even her boyfriend had to not look, it was not a place to stumble! We eventually reached the point where the trail turns back East to the next parking lot, where we had a granola bar, talked geology with some other visitors, and then turned around.
Rain and humidity and mud and scary vistas with mists enshrouding them and spectacular flowering bushes and the New River train tootling down below and countless severe drop-offs into the chasm. This was a trail that we loved, and we were so glad to be there. We got back to the parking lot after a long trek and it was *packed*. There were people spinning their wheels in the mud, competing for the few vacant spots. I’d been visualizing relaxing on the tailgate with a nice yogurt from the cooler when we got back to the trailhead, but instead we just got out of there immediately so someone else could take our space, and we headed back for the VC.
Made it back there and the sheltered picnic pavilion only had one other group in it, that soon departed. We spread out our stuff on a picnic table and had an excellent PB&J lunch, perhaps getting a little too cool in the suddenly active breeze after our long and humid hike. We took turns going to the bathrooms, and my Achilles tendons were suddenly all locked up. Though not really long or featuring much elevation change, that had been a strenuous hike.
But the best part of that New River Gorge section was still to come, if we believed the people who had gushed about it, the Fayette Station Road Driving Tour. The road winds down the East side of the gorge, then under the new bridge, then over the old bridge, and then back up the West side. The Fayette Road was a critical place for early trade, and all commerce was routinely slowed to a standstill by crawling down the bank, over the rickety bridge, and then back up. This is one reason why the new bridge is a marvel, the world's longest single-span arch bridge when it was completed in 1977 (now the 5th longest), reducing traffic time for crossing the gorge to less than a minute. We’d crossed that in the morning, but now we were going to go the old way.
From the VC we wound downhill and downhill, under the new bridge and past lush viewpoints and sudden drop-offs. We were in a group with several other cars, including a van with a burnt-out engine that produced lots of smoke. Down over the old bridge (which doesn’t seem very trustworthy) in an amazingly close and relatively still stretch of the river, and then downstream for a bit where we stopped to clamber around the shore at the bottom of the gorge, near where the river turns fierce again. Lots of others clambered there too, it was a pretty spectacular place with the sun finally coming out and the mist clearing above us. A woman claimed to have seen an anhinga. Some tubers ran the rapids and then climbed back up the few hundred yards to do it again. Then I saw a lone pickup rolling into the lot, and the driver gazing up at the sky. He crashed into a boulder and shattered his right headlight. Talk about embarrassed! He screwed out of there immediately, repeating a mantra of “Oh shit,” louder and louder.
Back in the car and we started up the gorge, realizing that the smoky van was not too far ahead of us. We stopped again when the trail switched back to the right at the head of the Kaymoor Trail, which leads to an old coal mine. Well, I’m going to remember this place for a long time. It sure wasn’t deserted, and we didn’t go far up the Trail, but it was one of the most vertiginous, lush, earthy places I’ve ever seen. We didn’t have much time to spend there but headed out the Trail and crossed one bridge over a raging stream, and then climbed up a steep slope to another waterfall that just filled me with joy. It came down on us, thirty feet or so from the cliff above, went under the path across the cliff that we were standing on, and then cascaded another 50 feet or so into the stream below. Can’t find a name for this falls in my maps, but I could have stayed and watched it forever, except it was spraying on me and finally drove us away, back down the Trail to the car, parked on a steep slope.
We drove up the last of that steep slope back to route 19, and then headed back to Beckley as the sun struggled to brighten up the late afternoon. We loved New River Gorge, but it was time to return to the hotel, take off our wet and muddy clothes, and relax a bit. I took a nap after we got back, and then joined Sarah in the lounge, where she’d been taking advantage of happy hour G&Ts. I joined in with a few of the pedestrian porters, and we had a game of Parks before going back to their restaurant for dinner.
Soon to bed again after that, having traveled 66.1 miles that day by car, and endlessly more marvelous miles by foot. Still raining hard as we fell asleep.
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