Day 2 of May 2023 Trip to West Virginia, New River Gorge

Second day of my 2023 Memorial Day trip to West Virginia as I reached New River Gorge National Park. The weather forecast indicated rain for the next day, so I decided to check out most of the park’s popular hiking trails today, together with the nearby Hawks Nest State Park of West Virginia.

After much driving the previous day, I spent the night in Summersville, WV, just a short 20-minute drive away from New River Gorge National Park.

Summersville Lake

After leaving the hotel and along the way to the national park, I passed Summersville Lake, the largest lake in the state. The lake was also known as "The Little Bahamas of the East" for its water clarity for scuba divers.
While I couldn't dive, I sure checked out the lake's major attraction, Long Point, which was a long and thin peninsula with rocky cliffs. (On this aspect I was a bit disappointed with West Virginia's lack of ingenuity in naming things. The most popular trail in New River Gorge National Park also led to a place called "Long Point".) While the lake's marina offered kayak rentals in the summer, I didn't have that much time so I viewed it both from an overlook across the lake, and from my drone. In addition, I also checked out the nearby Summersville Dam which created the lake, from an overlook.

And here were photos from my drone, which allowed me to get an up-close look of the rock formations along the cliffs.

And here are some videos from my drone:

Long Point and surrounding Summersville Lake. 1 minute and 18 seconds, 2160p60fps, 12Mbps/126MB for H265, 14Mbps/137MB for H264.

After leaving Summersville Lake, I decided to check out the rivers downstream of the national park, next to which was Hawk's Nest State Park.
Along the way, I had a close call with a deer along US19, attesting to the state's wilderness character while shocking me that such an incident could happen on a four-lane highway with median.

Hawk's Nest State Park

Lover's Leap

Lover's Leap overlook was one of two overlooks in the park, next to the park's lodge (and visitor center?), overlooking where a small creek (Mill Creek) joined New River.

Hawk's Nest Overlook

Just a short distance down the road was Hawk's Nest Overlook. Both of the overlooks were accessed through a short trail from their parking lots, the one to Hawk's Nest wasn't as steep. In my opinion the views from Hawk's Nest were better.

In addition, Hawk's Nest State Park featured a "Cliffside Trail", which I didn't have enough time for (I bet the views would be similar to the two overlooks). After that, I headed further west, checking out a few waterfalls along the way.

Further Downstream

The first one was "Cathedral Falls", located right along US60 where Cane Branch fell over 60 feet before joining New River. It parking lot was limited in size, so I didn't stay there for long.

Next I checked out Kanawha Falls, next to "Glen Ferris Hydroelectric Project" while I parked at the "Fishing Area". Gauley River (which flew through Summersville Lake) and New River merged a short distance upstream to form Kanawha River, which went through some cascades here.
It turned out the "Fishing Area" where I parked was popular for launching kayaks, with some brave kayakers getting up close to the waterfalls.

Since there was some distance between the parking lot and the waterfalls, I decided the waterfalls were best viewed from my drone. Here were some photos:

After Kanawha Falls, I headed back to the confluence of Gauley and New River and took more drone shots.
Here's a compilation of the drone videos from both spots:

And here were some photos:

This extended to Hawk's Nest Hydroelectric Plant, just upstream from Cathedral Falls. A tunnel connects this plant to Gauley Junction Dam, visible from Hawk's Nest Overlook earlier today, which channeled water and generated electricity.

After that, it's approaching 1pm. I headed for the town of Fayetteville for a quick lunch before beginning my tour of New River Gorge National Park in the afternoon.

New River Gorge National Park

Long Point Trail

This was the most popular trail in the park, sharing the same name as the rocky peninsula from Summersville Lake earlier today. From "Long Point Trailhead", it's a 4.8km out-and-back with 105m elevation gain. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived at the parking lot at 1:40pm, it's fully packed. It's either private property or roads with "no-parking" signs around the parking lot, so I had to bail out.
Luckily, Long Point could also be accessed from "Kaymoor Miners Trailhead" not far away, which made it a 4.7km out-and-back with 167m elevation gain. That would be the same trailhead to access Kaymoor Mine down the valley. It's a steep descent to Kaymoor Mine, probably the reason it's not as popular, as a result of which I managed to find a spot there.

I set off onto the trail just before 2pm. There were a few unpleasant/muddy spots along Butcher Branch Trail but largely it's in good condition. Here's GPS tracking:

40 minutes later, I was at Long Point. The main (if not the only view) from here was the New River Gorge Bridge. Constructed in 1977, it was once the world's longest arch bridge and highest vehicular bridge, spanning graciously across New River Gorge.

"Long Point" was some exposed boulders that stood out from the surrounding forest landscape. The end of those boulders towards the bridge, where people pose for photos, were crowded during my visit. Apart from that, there was enough room around for people to spread out, where I picked my spot and had some snacks, while watching an endless freight train travelling through the valley down below.

After spending 35 minutes at Long Point, I traced my way back, and reached my car just before 4pm. After a brief rest, I started descending down Kaymoor Miners Trail at 4pm.

Kaymoor Mine

This is a 2.4km out-and-back trail with 290m of elevation gain. Half of the elevation change was through a series of stairs (821 steps) towards the former mining site at Kaymoor Bottom.

Halfway down the valley the trail intersected the longer Kaymoor Trail (which traversed the gorge). Near the intersection were some remains of the mine like safety slogans and abandoned houses. The seemingly endless stairs started from this intersection.

Once at the bottom, a majority of the ruins were fenced off, obviously for safety reasons. Through the fence, one could still catch some sights of the building ruins. The ones outside the fence were mostly low structures that didn't pose falling risks. While most visitors remained close to the end of the wooden platform/stairs, a gentleman informed me that the fence formed a rectangular shape, and it's possible to walk around it. I made an attempt doing that, and was stopped by a steep drop-off (p6 below).

After 20 minutes at Kaymoor Bottom, I started the strenuous ascent back to the car, which took about 25 minutes.

Compared to other trails in New River Gorge National Park, this was certainly a strenuous one. But apart from the ruins of the mine at the bottom, it offered few views. And even the ruins at the bottom were largely fenced off, so I didn't feel they were that different from looking at the photos. Given the physical efforts required to reach the mine site, I didn't feel it's worthwhile.

By the time I got back to my car, it's 5:20pm. This had been a long day, but the weather forecast indicated chances of rain for the next day, so my plan was to finish as many hikes, especially longer ones, today, and leave the shorter hikes and overlooks to the next day. I still had 3 hours of daylight left, and for that, I decided to check out Diamond Point / Endless Wall Trail, another popular trail in the park across the gorge.

Diamond Point / Endless Wall

"Endless Wall Trail" followed the cliff of New River Gorge for some distance, where occasional clifftop overlooks towered above the New River below. Among the clifftop overlooks, "Diamond Point" was the largest and most prominent. From the (Fern Creek) trailhead, "Diamond Point" was reached by either a 3.2km out-and-back or a 5km loop, which I opted for the latter.

I saw from online reviews that this was a very popular trail with limited parking spaces. Probably because I arrived late in the day, I didn't have trouble parking, after which I started my hike just before 6pm, in counterclockwise direction.

The trail started out in an enjoyable walk among fresh fragrance of dense forest.

In just 18 minutes, I reached the first (of two) overlooks marked on OpenStreetMap, located at the end of a spur from the main trail. Living up to the name "Endless Wall Trail", it offered close-up views of rocky cliffs along the New River Gorge.

Leaving the first overlook, "Endless Wall Trail" stayed a safe distance from the cliffs, but for adventurous souls like me, one could follow the cliffs up close (for certain portions) through a community trail, or more appropriately, openings in the bushes. By doing this, I found a piece of boulder which I named "New Lover's Leap".

Soon after that, I reached Diamond Point, which was the largest clifftop overlook along the trail. It was also at a prominent location, extending into a bend of New River down below, offering vantage views.
From there, one could easily see how the rocky cliffs extended for a seemingly endless distance upstream, and hence the name "endless wall".

After spending about 20 minutes at Diamond Point, I continued along the loop.
Beyond Diamond Point, the trail saw much less foot traffic, so I got to enjoy the mountain laurels and the songs of the birds. But on the flip side, there were only a few overlooks along this remaining 1.7km of Endless Wall Trail, where the views were hardly exciting compared to the overlooks earlier (slideshow below). On this aspect, I sort of prefer the shorter out-and-back trail to Diamond Point, instead of the loop that I took.

Until the last overlook (p6-7 above), where the layered mountains and another turn of the river brought some refreshing sights.

After a short walk along a country road, I was back at my car just before 8pm, finishing the loop trail in 2 hours. After that, I drove to my overnight hotel in the town of Beckley and called it a day.

End