Today we drove one hour from White Sulphur Springs to the New Gorge National Park & Preserve. The National Park System was established on August 25th, 1916 by President Woodrow Wilson. There are sixty-three designated National Parks in the United States; New River Gorge is the newest park to be designated in the National Parks System, being redesignated into the NPS in 2020 by President Donald J. Trump.
The 53-mile park gets its name from the 1,000-foot gorge carved by the New River as it winds its way through three US states, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Interesting tip, the New River is 360 miles long and is one of the few rivers that flows northward.
The New River Gorge Bridge is a steel bridge spanning 3,030-feet and rising 876-feet above the New River. It was completed in 1977, and 16,200 motor vehicles travel across it every day.
For $79, you can experience a guided walk across the entire length of the bridge on a 24-inch-wide catwalk located 25-feet beneath bridge’s roadway. While we did not try this on today’s visit it something we will definitely consider on our next visit to this park. To learn more, visit this link: https://bridgewalk.com/bridge-walk-tour
The National Park Service has a special program for dogs called, B.A.R.K. Ranger. Visit any National Park Visitor Center you can enroll your pup in this program, where you take the pledge to be good canine park ambassadors. We enrolled Poppy & Toby in this program at the Canyon Rim Visitor Center, where we received a B.A.R.K. certificate, and purchased the optional bandanna and B.A.R.K. dog tag. Now every National Park that we visit we can collect a dog tag related to that specific park. What a great challenge to collect all 63! I forgot to get a photo of the pups with their bandanas on, but will add one to tomorrow’s post!
The Canyon Rim Boardwalk trail is a very popular and easy trail that begins directly adjacent to the Canyon Rim Visitor Center. It is only 0.2-miles round trip, is ADA accessible, and the viewing platform gives fantastic views of the New River Gorge Bridge. The very adventurous can access a lower viewing platform that gives views from below the bridge by descending a 178 step-staircase and then ascending those same 178 steps back out! We gave that option a hard pass! LOL
Our last hike was the Burnwood Trail, a 1.2-mile loop trail that encompasses a former farm site containing old growth trees of over 350 years old!
One of the great things about this National Park is that dogs are allowed on every single hiking trail! Most other parks in the NPS have very limited areas where dogs are allowed, many of the hiking trails prohibit pups. We saw lots of dogs in this park and all of them were very well behaved; perhaps New River Gorge National Park can be the impetus for allowing dogs to accompany their families in other NPS in the future.
The Wallace Adventure! 