New River Gorge / Long Point Trail
Driving Across West Virginia | Visiting New River Gorge National Park | Hiking the Long Trail to Summersville Lake | August 2026
Having completed our main goals for this roadtrip through the Appalachians, we allowed ourselves a slow morning at our campsite in Virginia, getting some work done before hitting the road again. At this point, we had hiked to all the prominent peaks for Curtis’ goal that we could reasonably reach that were along our route, so there was not much to do besides drive, get new counties, and see whatever attractions we could along the way. We made our way North on I-81 into West Virginia, eventually heading towards New River Gorge.
This national park has become one of our more frequently visited ones thanks to it being ‘on the way’ almost anytime we cross West Virginia, and also because it has several free campgrounds that we’ve enjoyed utilizing throughout our travels. Today, our main objective was to get the 250 stamp at the visitor center, and since we were here, to walk down and see the giant bridge and gorge lookout, because how could we not? It was also my first time going into the visitor center, so we spent a little time here walking through the exhibits as well.
After that, we drove further North to the Gauley Dam Campground, and settled in for the rest of the afternoon. It was our third time staying here, and as always, we enjoy the free site and being able to walk to see the river and the dam. Overall today was a pretty chill day, much needed after all our activity from the weekend and also looking ahead towards our plans for the next weekend.
The next morning, Curtis found a hike that we could do nearby for some exercise before our longer drive. We navigated to the North side of Summerville Lake and to the trailhead for the Long Point Trail, located near a tiny airport. We set off on the trail, heading South towards an overlook of the lake.
Along the way, my sister video called me because my nephew wanted to chat, and since my service was strong enough, we ended up talking for most of the walk to the point. That certainly made the time pass quickly! He was very interested in my ‘backpack,’ which was actually my camelback, so I had to demonstrate how it was used. While we love our life on the road so much, the only thing I miss is getting to spend more time with our nieces and nephews. I have no idea what they think of our lifestyle, but we do our best to share little parts about it like letting them see our van, sending postcards, showing pictures and telling them stories whenever they seem interested. We love getting to visit them and get to know them better in their hometowns, but we hope to someday get to share some of the places we love with them!
The trail to the point was about 2 miles long, and when we arrived we found our way out on to the rocky outcropping with wide open views of the lake. We remembered kayaking on it 3 years ago, and seeing it from viewpoints on the South side, so it was fun to see it from a new perspective with a little effort on our part! We watched boats speed by below us and enjoyed some snacks before returning back to the van. I had forgotten my camera, so we made do with capturing the views and the memories on our phones.
Back at the van, we went over our planned route for getting across West Virginia, which was not exactly straightforward because – shocker – we were after a few new counties. We went out of our way for one that would have been an annoying hole in the map, but still ended up leaving a different hole because we can only stand so much of these long, winding county roads sometimes. Curtis also had a meeting in the mid-afternoon, so we didn’t have any more time to spare. After our round-about way of getting there, we drove West into Charleston and then North to Ravenswood, on the Ohio river. We would have made it in time for the meeting if it weren’t for backed up traffic at the very end — whoops. I directed Curtis to a park on the river, where he had his meeting in the van and I sat outside and listened to an audiobook while decompressing from the drive.
When Curtis was done with work, we went for a walk along the water, then made dinner. We had seen online that people claimed you could park overnight here, but we were skeptical about that since the entrance sign said it was closed overnight. We decided to obey the sign and as the sun was beginning to set, we drove across the Ohio River into Ohio and to a rest area a little ways North. If I could say anything good about Ohio, it’s that I genuinely enjoy sleeping at its rest areas, especially along the quieter highways. We settled in for a mostly quiet night, on what we hoped would be our last night having *not* visited every county in Ohio.
