Trails, Travels, and Trailering Adventures

Trails, Travels, and Trailering Adventures My adventures traveling and hiking

New River Gorge Trip Day 4May 15 2026We started our last day by visiting the Canyon Rim visitor center to make sure we h...
05/17/2026

New River Gorge Trip Day 4
May 15 2026
We started our last day by visiting the Canyon Rim visitor center to make sure we hadn't missed any of the must do hikes in the area. Armed with some recommendations, we headed over to check out the Nuttalburg mine ruins, both top and bottom. These ruins were in much better shape than the Kaymoor ruins we visited a couple days before and we also got to walk right up to the mine entrance here and even grab a small piece of coal as another souvenir.

After those hikes we drove another 30 mins to the Island in the Sky trail, but it was a bit of a bust. The coolest thing to see was an old mill right in the parking lot and the trail itself wasn't anything special

To wrap up the day, we did the Long Point trail which had an impressive but far too-scary-to-enjoy view of the bridge. We then stopped at a puerto rican inspired food spot in town to get takeout for our last night in the area

New River Gorge Trip Day 3May 14 2026We used thurs to knock out the final points on our audio tour for the park, which i...
05/17/2026

New River Gorge Trip Day 3
May 14 2026
We used thurs to knock out the final points on our audio tour for the park, which included the more southern portion of the park near Hinton WV.

Our first official stop was at the Sandstone Falls visitor center where we watched a 90s era video about the park. We then drove on toward Sandstone Falls, stopping for a quick hike at Big Branch trail to see a different waterfall first and then doing a quick exploration of the Sandstone area.

Honestly all of this was a bit lackluster compared to our other adventures thus far and coupled with temps in the 40s and low 50s and gray skies, day 3 wasn't shaping up to be my favorite day. But then we proceeded on to our last point on our tour, Grandview and Thurs really turned around

Grandview was previously a state park that was transitioned over to the NPS in the 90s. We did a 2+ mile loop, combining both the Tunnel trail which had towering boulders and small caves and the Castle Rock trail with impressive views, crazy rock walls and a coal vein along the trail and finished it up right at sunset which was so gorgeous.

New River Gorge Day 2May 13 2026We started the day with the Endless Wall trail hike and got some amazing views. I was mo...
05/16/2026

New River Gorge Day 2
May 13 2026

We started the day with the Endless Wall trail hike and got some amazing views. I was more trepidatious than normal after briefly losing Jeremiah near a cliff and thinking the worst but he was fine and we still got some great views despite my unwillingness to get anywhere near an edge for myself, or him.

After the hike, we grabbed lunch at a general store and dropped the dogs at the campground to head to the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine. This site included a recreated coal camp and an unground coal mine tour led by a former coal miner from WV. It was an awesome experience and we learned a lot from our knowledgeable guide.

Last stop of the day was the Kaymore Miners trail which was a mile long hike straight down into the gorge and then a mile hike straight back up. Tons of ruins along and at the bottom of the hike and we made it back out right before dark.

New River Gorge Day 1We arrived at our campground last night just before dark so today was our first actual day of explo...
05/16/2026

New River Gorge Day 1
We arrived at our campground last night just before dark so today was our first actual day of exploring

We started the day and our audio tour by going to Concho overlook for a private view of the new river and a bit of exploration down a short trail.

We then headed over to Thurmond, an abandoned coal/railroad town and stopped along the drive at a roadside waterfall that was gorgeous. The town itself wasn't much to see but cool to learn the history of the once bustling place

Afterwards, we grabbed lunch and headed over to some different viewpoints of the new river gorge bridge and river.

Next, we did the kaymoor trail to see another waterfall and ended up taking an offshoot trail to see what was feeding the waterfall, where I ended up half covered in mud due to an unfortunate slip. Luckily we were only 10 mins from our campground after completing the hike so I was able to change without too much trouble

By this point, it was basically dinner time so we drove back into town to grab dinner before checking out the overlook by the visitors center for the sunset.

Two hikes today to see flowers and a cave
04/12/2026

Two hikes today to see flowers and a cave

Puerto Rico Minimoon 2026Feb 11We arrived in PR around 1am and grabbed our rental car. Original plan was to grab some sl...
02/13/2026

Puerto Rico Minimoon 2026
Feb 11

We arrived in PR around 1am and grabbed our rental car. Original plan was to grab some sleep in the rental til morning and then power through but the 70 degree temps were going to make it difficult to sleep safely and comfortably so I found us a shockingly nice hotel at a good price about 40 mins from the airport that got us in around 3am.

After checking out of our last minute hotel stay, we got on the road to head west to our airbnb. Once we got near the coast, we pulled off to check out a beach and found magic! This spot had to be one of my top 5 most amazing things I've seen. The power of the waves crashing on the rocks was awe inspiring and scary.

We continued our trip along the coast, stumbling upon a statue that looked straight out of hell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_of_the_New_World) and a tragic accident that had one of our planned pit stops closed for body recovery (https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FLRqcx677/)

Once we got checked into our Aguadilla airbnb, we realized that while ocean front (ish), we weren't beach front so we loaded back into the rental for a 4 min drive to an actual beach. By this point, it was about 4pm so we didn't stay too long but it was cool seeing the huge pelicans and laying out in the still warm sun.

Address

Drumore, PA
17518

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Trails, Travels, and Trailering Adventures posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category