For one of the long weekends back in the spring my super amazing wife and I decided to go to New River Gorge National Park! It was beautiful.
We had a couple of motivations, the major one being that it was a three-day weekend and so it would be a waste to not get out of town. The second is that my super amazing wife is a big fan of going to national park sites, and New River Gorge has the claim to fame that, besides all the natural wonders, it is the newest national park. I hadn’t realized before going that this had been mostly a bureaucratic step, with the site having been in the national park system as a national river for over four decades by that point. But still, novelty!
We set out amongst uninspiring weather, with rain coming down hard or harder during the drive. We lucked out with the weather really, as the sun came out when we were hiking and the rain letting up mostly when we wanted to be out and about. Then in the evenings when we were cozily secure in our lodgings we could hear the rain come down amongst the trees and frogs and it was oh so very nice.
To break up the drive we stopped at the Cestari Sheep & Wool Company which was great. That place was indeed a sheep & wool company. My super amazing wife found them because they are a small sheep farm with their own flock of Rambouillet sheep which they turn into yarn in-house, a combination of words which ensures my super amazing wife will eventually darken your doorstep and buy a sweater-quantity of yarn. They will also grill up a lamb burger for you on weekends, and that was a delicious lamb burger indeed. Inside their shop it is all sheep-themed with sheepskin gloves, sheepskin booties, sheep meat, sheep cheese, yarn, wool blankets, you name it, and then a whole farm store to boot with ciders and wines and jams and what have you. They even had some antiques for sale and upstairs is housed a tiny “museum” of textile manufacturing equipment. They seemed really nice and are worth a stop if any of that at all interests you.
Eventually we approached Fayetteville and the gorge, but before crossing turned off into the Canyon Rim Visitor Center to see the gorge as the National Park Service intended. They have a viewing platform down 178 steps which signs warn you very sternly that you’ll have to walk back up again yourself. It really wasn’t so bad of a climb and we saw plenty of dogs. As you descend you are well ensconced in the woods and only really break out into the view at the very end, giving you a dramatic reveal of the bridge above and the river below. This gives you a chance to not consider just how thin and spindly the bridge looks, really, before you drive over it later. No need to think about that at all.
Having verified the gorge was there, and knowing we would get further dramatic views the next day, we head back up those steps and finished our drive before getting some dinner. Despite not being mountain bike enthusiasts ourselves, we went to The Handle Bar + Kitchen (get it, they do bikes there) for dinner, another lovely spot. This was a bit of a theme of our time in New River Gorge, where it seems the majority of people go for adventure such as long hikes or whitewater rafting or BASE jumping or rock climbing, but we instead went for scenic views and cozy mountain town vibes. So even without a mountain bike in tow at The Handle Bar we enjoyed some excellent brats and fries while dining near a small herd of very friendly goats who will let you give them a scratch if you walk up to the fence. From there, an excellent day was rounded out by an excellent evening playing scrabble, cozily tucked away from the rain.
