Camping in West Virginia

We just spent about a week on the road camping in West Virginia.  This let us get back out exploring a bit without straying too far in case pandemic things went haywire.

Our first stop was Battle Run Campground, a Corps of Engineers campground on Summersville Lake.  This was a beautiful campground, and would be especially good for boaters (they had anchor points for boats right next to many of the campsites).  Unfortunately I booked this so late that I think we got the absolute worst spot on the campground (site 109, right behind the check in building), but even so we could still see the lake.  

See?  Lake is visible in the background :-)

There were several things to see in the immediate area - first we went to Carnifex Ferry Battlefield State Park, a Civil War battleground just around the corner.  It has one of the most beautiful overlooks we've seen in a while - visible without even having to hike!

Overlook at the picnic area parking lot

We took the Patterson Trail along the edge of the park and learned about the battle (which, honestly, seemed mostly unremarkable).  We saw a couple more beautiful overlooks and witnessed a 'stampede' of some very noisy cattle.  

After the state park, we drove down to the Summerville Lake dam.  This dam was put in place for flood control and provides additional benefits of low flow supplementation for the river downstream and hydropower at a small facility.  

This is one of the original turbines that failed

Sitting atop the dam looking down at the hydropower plant

We hiked the Long Point trail to see another view of the lake from some rocks Aaron enjoyed risking his life on.

Contemplating how much farther he could go

Panorama from the overlook we eventually reached

After a couple days in the Summersville Lake area, we headed south just a little bit to camp at Little Beaver State Park.  This was a nice, mostly wooded campground near a small lake with a dam with a pretty outfall.

While we were here, we went to several sights in the New River Gorge National River park.  We went up to the main overlook for the New River Gorge Bridge, the longest steel span in the Western hemisphere.  Although most of the visitor centers are closed due to COVID-19, they did have a ranger stationed outside the main overlook to answer questions, hand out park maps, and (most importantly!) provide stamps for your National Park Passports.

At the main overlook

We decided to take the 45 minute drive to the bottom of the gorge and back out, which was WELL worth the trip.  This route traced the original route all travelers had to take before the famous bridge was built.  The bridge, according to the signs, reduced a 45 minute trip to 45 seconds.

View from the bottom - we were standing on the replica of
the original bridge looking up at the new bridge

Later we visited the Sandstone Falls, still in the very large New River Gorge National River's park.  The overlook for the falls is easily accessible just off of I-64, and the falls look rather unimpressive from that height, so we almost decided not to take the 40 minute drive down the gorge and across the river to see them up close.  Thank goodness we did go though!  They were much more impressive up close.  The observation boardwalk is nice, but of course Aaron had to go 'off-roading' a bit to get the full up close view.

Midway through our exploration for the path to the best view
of the falls

Panorama of the falls from our ultimate vantage point

The photos really don't do the falls justice, they were beautiful and quite impressive stretched across the entire width of the New River.

Our final stop in the New River Gorge National River was the Grandview overlook.  We first tried early in the morning after an intense rain and had NO luck, but came back later in the day to a beautiful view.

Nothing to see here!

A beautiful view later in the day

Back at our campsite, Aaron came up with an innovative bellows to help our campfire grow...I just had to share.

My hair dryer is only slightly worse for the wear.  Of course while you're RVing the maintenance is ever-present, and while we were out Aaron installed a backflow preventer on our shower after seeing it recommended on Fate Unbound's YouTube channel.  We have a cutoff on our shower head to quickly turn the water off while we're sudsing up while we're not on sewer, but because the higher pressure cold water seeps back into the hot water line while the water is off, cutting the water back on always causes a burst of cold water before the temperature returns to normal.  Installing the backflow preventer (aka check valve) on the hot water feed to the shower stopped this!

Installing the valve via the handy panel
in our bedroom.

Aaron also finally fixed the slow leak in our propane tank before we filled up at U-Save Propane near Summersville Lake.  This is the first time we filled our propane tank, and we were amazed at how quick and easy it was!  We left with a full tank of propane not even 30 minutes after driving on the property.

It was so nice and refreshing to get back on the road!  We returned the RV to the family farm after our adventure, with a renewed commitment to get back on the road permanently as soon as we can.