We began our second day at New River Gorge with a hike along the Endless Wall. If you wonder why it is called Endless wall, look at the pictures. In the first one you can see the wall. In the second one, you can see two parts of the wall. Further into the hike, the wall just fades into the distance.
Looking down into the gorge, we saw a muddy fast moving river. We were about 900 feet above the river. It was a gorgeous view, but it seemed off for some reason. Initially, we were surprised by the color of the water. Then we realized that the New River was carrying off the water and debris from Hurricane Helene. We were five days and 250 miles removed from the disaster that occurred there, yet we were seeing the results of the devastation being carried down the New River.
A close up picture of the New River showed the speed and volume of water in the river that day. It is amazing that a single storm could affect such a large area for such a long time.
In spite of the turmoil in the river below, life near the top of the gorge went on as normal. A calm brook and some fall vegetation knew nothing of what was happening below.
At the end of the day we noticed a difference in our hiking styles. One of us is comfortable at the edge of high places. The other is not. Do you see what we mean?
After our hike, we stopped at the Canyon Rim Visitor Center. We learned about the history of the area and bought our postcards and patches.
While we were at the visitor center, we hiked the Canyon Rim Overlook Boardwalk. The boardwalk is not a typical boardwalk. It goes down the mountain with only a few level spots along the way. There are warnings reminding people that you will need to hike back up every step you walk down. While it is steep, it is not too long. There are amazing views along the way.
The best view on the boardwalk is the view of the New River Gorge Bridge. The bridge is over a half mile long. The arch is 1700 feet long. That makes it the longest arch bridge in the United States. When it was built, it reduced the travel time across the gorge over the Fayetteville Station Road from almost an hour to less than two minutes. You can see the Fayetteville Station Road bridge in the last picture in this group.
After the visitor center, we traveled the Fayetteville Station Road to experience the old way across the river. On the way to the old bridge, we traveled over narrow mountain roads. It really is a slow journey.
We had the chance to see the new bridge from some different vantage points.
After we crossed over the old bridge and traveled down stream a short distance, we got a new perspective of the current condition of the New River. It varied from a deep over the banks relatively calm river, to a narrower faster moving river, to a very narrow raging torrent in about a half a mile. All three pictures were taken from almost the same spot. We were far from the normal bank of the river, but still at the waters edge. Not a good day to go for a swim!
It was a fun day of hiking and driving. After our adventure beside the raging river, we drove the remainder of the Fayetteville Station Road on our way back to our hotel.