New River, West Virginia

Have you ever heard of Bridge Day? It is a Saturday in October set aside for people to rappel or freebase off the US Highway 19 bridge which is the longest arch bridge in the western hemisphere. (They used to bungee jump there also but we heard that has been stopped now.) It is pretty high up above the river! Graham and I found the windy small road that leads down to the old bridge. It used to take 45 minutes to drive from rim on one side of this river canyon to the other rim...now, with the new bridge that was built in 1977, it takes 45 seconds.




We went to the Visitor Center, as the New River Gorge is a National Scenic River, one class below a National Park. When I asked the ranger how truck traffic would travel on this highway route before the new bridge, he didn't know. But later in the day, the woman who drove the bus taking us to the put-in point and out again after our raft trip told me there was no US Route 19 before the bridge. A highway study had been done that showed the need for a new connector route in that portion of the state, and the bridge and 4 lane divided highway was built.

This is the old bridge, rebuilt in the 19902. It is one lane with a plank roadbed.

At the Visitor Center we learned that much of the land immediately adjacent to the river was dotted with small towns in the late 1800s-early 1900s as the area was mined for coal and trees were harvested for various needs (pulp and wood for furniture). At one point during the raft trip our guide pointed out a brick wall that was part of a building in a town that had long been abandoned and overgrown by nature.

We stayed two nights in a one bedroom cabin located about 10 minutes from Class VI, the white water rafting company we used for our trip. Class VI is a class act! If you plan to go for an experience on the New or Gauley Rivers, feel confident you will get good attention there. Not only do they offer a variety of white water trips, but they also have many other outdoor adventures offered including a treetops tour on ziplines and rope bridges.

We ate the evening after our raft trip at the Class VI Smokey's on the Gorge restaurant. They have a gourmet buffet, which seems like an oxymoron, but it actually was the second best dinner of our trip (b in Baltimore was better.) with 4 or 5 entrees well prepared and a wonderful salad bar with many great cheeses as well.

We stayed for the sunset which got clouded out with a low bank of clouds.

We've gone white water rafting a number of times. I think my first experience was when I worked at the Vanderbilt Eye Clinic and about 30 of us went to the Ocoee River one Saturday. This was the river used for the Atlanta Olympics. The following year I went again with my daughter Lisa and my sister Susie.

Then when Sam was about 5 years ago, he and his brother Dan and I took a trip from Oakland, California to Portland, Oregon. At that time, because of Sam's age, we were limited to rivers with only Class I or Class II rapids and enjoyed a trip down the McKenzie. We were the only rafters that time so we suited up into wet suits, climbed aboard our raft with one guide and the other guide (always 2 for safety) kayaked along with us. Sam was like a bowsprit in the front, way too small to paddle, and he was eager for each and every little ripple of water.

So, two years ago, when we made another west coast trip, this time from Sacramento to Seattle, we opted for a fantastic trip on the Upper Klamath with Momentum River Expeditions. What we appreciated about this group was that they were well experienced, with no one having less that 6 years experience. The Upper Klamath has really long runs of Class IV rapids, some of the longest in the country. It was a wild ride. They heard we were from West Virginia and recommended Class VI for any trips we would want on the New or Gauley.

Last year, as you can read below in this blog, we rafted the tidal bore in the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. We did not paddle as the raft was motor driven and I will admit I did not enjoy it as much as the downstream rafting.

On the Lower New River trip, there were 2 rafts and 14 people. Shane, our guide, had been working for Class VI for 20 years and had seen it grow from a small trailer to the large quality operation it is now. The other guide had also worked there for 20 years. When I told Shane one of the guides on the Ocoee had purposely dumped us all into the water, he assured me he prefers the trip taken in the boat, and trying to dump us may end up dumping him. In fact, he also told us that if any of the guides dumps any of the passengers, they have to buy beers for all the other guides. That's incentive not to dump people! LOL

The Lower New has many Class III and IV rapids and maybe one V. There are stretches of quiet float areas and several rocks for jumping into deep water. It was a great trip!

The next morning we woke to rain. During the trip we had had some sprinkles as we drove and it rained several nights, but this was the first time we had a pretty steady downpour. It was okay...we were heading homee.

We decided to drive back on Route 60 so I could see another part of the state. The road winded through the hills above the New River and finally came down at the town of Gauley Bridge, were we crossed the Gauley right upstream from where it flows into the new. The river at that point changes name to the Kanawha, which is the river that flows through Charleston.

We finally got home and were happy to discover that it only took 2 hours to drive from the New River area....we will return!!