11-Nov-2023 New River Gorge National Park

If I just showed you the picture above you would likely think I am at the Grand Canyon but I'm not – it's from New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia!

As you all know my toxic trait is that I take way too many pictures .... WAAAAAY too many. So please excuse if there are too many of them in my posts but sometimes I just can't help myself. I was in 3 completely different areas today so each required a handful of pictures to properly document.

The day started with lots of thick fog – at one point I felt like I was driving into heaven because all around me was nothing but a thick white cloud. First stop was at the river level to walk along a beautiful boardwalk and a nature path and see some small waterfalls along the river. From there I drove about 15 minutes up to the highest point of the park (1400 feet above river level) to Grandview (aptly named) – that's where the header picture above was taken. From here I did a 4 mile hike through the woods and along the rocky cliffs to a beautiful viewing platform atop a large rock formation. Final stop of the day was a town called Thurmond which was a bustling railroad station and town in the early 1900s and is now abandoned.

Theme for the day is coal. I was amazed when I drove along the river and was passed by a seemingly endless freight train filled with car after car after car after car of coal. I've never seen a train as long – it actually had an engine in the middle! Then hiking through the woods this afternoon there was an area where there was a distinct vein of coal beneath the sandstone. Apparently West Virginia still provides about a third of our nations coal. It's amazing how many train cars full of coal passed through here every every day. When you come from Maine you just don't think about coal very often, but it's what put this place on the map and still is such a vital part of our economy.