Buffalo Mountain / New River Gorge
Driving from the Blue Ridge Parkway to New River Gorge National Park | Hiking Buffalo Mountain, VA | Visiting New River Gorge National Park | Camping at the Gauley River Campground | June 2024
We started our day at Rocky Knob Campground along the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is easily becoming one of our favorite spots coming and going from Wilmington – even if it is a paid campground, and even if the rates keep increasing. We completed our morning routine, took care of our fresh and grey waters, then hit the road.
We followed some of Virginia’s backcountry county highways off of the Blue Ridge Parkway and through the country side. We eventually made it to the base of Buffalo Mountain Natural Preserve, which is managed by the State of Virginia. This was one drive that we were quite thankful for Google, and even then Google didn’t register that there was a road through the preserve and up to trailhead.
We were early enough that all the vehicles we saw were going up the mountain, which was especially good since I don’t know how we could have passed two cars during half of the drive up. At the trailhead, there were already several cars parked, but still room for us to find a spot, get our stuff together and head out for a hike.
Our original plan was to take the less steep, but slightly longer trail with Charlotte since it was only a couple miles round trip. But the trail was much more rocky and rooty than we expected, and Charlotte had different ideas for her morning, and just wasn’t in the mood for hiking. We returned what little distance we had gone back to the car so Jess and Charlotte could relax in the morning sun, and then I took the steep and short trail to the top of the peak, which oddly enough, seemed better maintained and less rocky than the original trail. Buffalo Mountain is one of my prominent peaks and we had first seen and heard about it last year when we first visited Rocky Knob. There, while visiting Mabry Mill, we read about the interesting anecdote that children living along the Blue Ridge would be allowed to travel so long as they stayed within sight of ‘The Buffalo’, or something to that effect. It definitely is a focal point on the Northern horizon while driving the parkway. Fortunately for me, the summit is bald and rocky and allowed for lots of views, especially to the North and West. I’m pretty sure I could make out Mount Rogers from here, but it was hazy enough that I might have been mistaken. I returned the way I came and made it back to the car without further event…except that at the car we think I took off my hiking boots and set them aside and then left without them? Or at least this was the last confirmed sighting of my hiking boots. If you have big feet and want a pair of gently used work/hiking boots, now’s your chance.
After a brief lunch in the parking lot, we returned back the way we came, navigating by Google until we reached I-77 which we followed North into West Virginia. It would have been nice to knock out some counties in the KY-VA-WV tri-state area, but there just aren’t that many free camping areas that we could find. Instead we continued North until we reach US-19 North of Beckley which we continued following North over the New River Gorge. US19 is the very famous New River Gorge Bridge, which holds the record of being the longest single span arch bridge…outside China. We stopped on the North Side at the NPS visitor center to get our cancellation stamps and get a view of the bridge. There’s probably quite a few hikes we could have done, but that was enough for us. It was very popular here and obviously tourist season. We had actually visited this area before we got married in May of 2012 during a drive to New Bern, NC, though the area wasn’t a National Park at that time. It was nice to see the bridge again, but we definitely prefer other less popular sections of this park, like the Sandstone and Grandview areas.
From here we continued North to Summersville where we found a place to camp at the Gauley Tailwaters Campground; another repeat campground for us, and still part of the New River Gorge National Park. There we enjoyed a relaxing night and a nice neighbor who doted on Charlotte considerably.
