This is part eleven of a travel series to West Virginia. To start at the beginning, go HERE!
After spending the morning in Babcock State Park, we started the drive to our pit-stop for the night: Charleston. But, of course there would be more stops and fun along the way, after all, this was a ROAD TRIP! 😃
Hawks Nest State Park
Hawk's Nest wasn't on our itinerary, but we had to drive right past it to get to Charleston. We had no plans on stopping, but since it was right off the road and looking absolutely intriguing, we had to stop. We first saw the Lodge, and so we stopped there to use the restrooms. In the back of the lodge is a beautiful viewing deck overlooking the canyon rim. There is a tram there which takes you down 1286 feet to the trails below, but it wasn't operating yet (the story of this entire trip 😐). There were men working on the tram, getting it ready for the season, when we were there. You can see the tram in the photo above.
So, since the tram wasn't working, we got back in the car and in just a few moments we found the Historic Area, so we stopped the car again...that's a road trip: stop, go, stop, go. 😀
That cool brick historic building above now houses restrooms and the building in the photo below is now the park office.
Only a few steps from the parking lot is the Hawk's Nest Overlook Trail where you can get incredible views like this. You can also access the Cliffside Trail from here, which looks really interesting on the map but it looked long and we didn't have that kinda time. 😞. The Cliffside Trail is a rugged 3.5 mile out-and-back hike that hugs steep rock ledges and drops 350 feet into the gorge. That would have taken us hours to hike, and we didn't have that kind of time. I can see coming back to this area and exploring it more; hopefully when the tram is up and running.
The Observation Deck of Hawk's Nest Overlook.
Once we were done drooling over the views, we did take a short loop trail in the Historic Area. We saw a cool pavilion, and another view of the gorge.
While standing on the observation deck, we heard a train coming and decided to make a video for the grandsons, who love trains.
Cathedral Falls
Back on Hwy 60 again heading to Charleston it wasn't long before we made it to our next stop: Cathedral Falls. Would you believe you can see this 60 foot waterfall from the highway? I could not, I'm use to hiking miles to see a pretty waterfall. But this beauty, is right off the highway and they even have a small parking lot you can pull over to admire it more closely.
We made a short video so you can get a better feeling of the moving water.
Kanawha Falls
And just a hop, skip, and a jump from Cathedral Falls is Kanawha Falls. This beauty is located in Glen Ferris, just downstream of Gauley Bridge. The building sitting almost on top of the falls is the Historic Glen Ferris Inn. It was established in 1812 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
This area is well-known for fishermen and kayakers.
These 24 foot tall waterfalls span the entire width of the Kanawa River. The waterfall cascades over a sandstone edge. You can view the waterfall from a park just past the falls.
Next week I will wrap up my West Virginia travel series with a visit to the State Capitol: Charleston. See you then!
I made this card back in March for a Splitcoaststampers Card Sketch Challenge. Splitcoaststampers is an on-line community of card makers, stampers, and scrapbook enthusiasts. They have challenges every day of the week and one of my favorite challenges is the Sketch Challenge.
Although I look at the sketch challenge every week, I rarely play along. Mostly, because I don't have time, but I am also picky about the type of sketches I want to do. This week, I happened to like the sketch so much I decided to play along. Here is the sketch pictured below:
I had this old Crafty Secrets (no longer in business) image that was perfect for this sketch because it was already in the shape of a circle. All I had to do was color it in and cut it out. Easy peasy.
Here's a close up of my coloring. I used Copic Markers to color.
I used designer paper from My Mind's Eye "Stella Rose" for the background. I cut the scalloped border and the sentiment using dies from Spellbinders and My Favorite Things.
I enjoyed this sketch and had a lot of fun playing along with the other Splitcoaststampers ladies.
This is part ten of a travel series to West Virginia. To start at the beginning, go HERE!
On our last day of our West Virginia road trip we were up super early to pack a full day of activities before we would head to Charleston, our last pit stop of the night before heading home. The first thing we did was drive to Babcock State Park. If you only go to one or two state parks in West Virginia, this is one not to be missed. It is a beauty! The main feature of this part is the Glade Creek Grist Mill. You will see lots of photos of this mill as it is quite jaw-dropping!
It was much colder in this area than in Lewisburg where we spent the night. I was dressed for a seventy degree day, but it was FREEZING. After taking these photos I quickly changed into a winter coat and sweatpants. Thankfully, my sweatpants had very wide legs so they fit right over my clothes and shoes. I highly recommend packing wide leg sweatpants when traveling!
The main entrance to this park has this old, but no longer functional, park rangers office. Now you bypass this and just drive to the main parking lot where the gift shop and park headquarters are located.
The Grist Mill is located right off the main parking lot so it is the first thing you see. I was in absolute awestruck of its serene, historic beauty.
They had beautiful 11 x 14 photos of the mill for sale in the gift shop so I bought one as my souvenir of this trip. I always like to buy one souvenir of every trip we take. Sometimes it's a piece of jewelry, like my aspen leaf necklace from Colorado, and sometimes it's artwork like my flamingo blown glass from Las Vegas. The photo of the grist mill was the perfect souvenir to memorialize this trip.
Looking at the photos in the gift shop, we noticed there was quite of difference of water levels in the creek and falls depending on the time of year one was visiting. We were there in very early spring, so the creek and falls were very full. Here's a short video showing the mill and waterfalls.
Unfortunately even though the park was open, the gift shop and headquarters were open, all the interior roads to the park were closed. It was quite upsetting as it meant we couldn't do much hiking as we would have had to hike miles to the trail heads instead of driving in and parking in a lot. So we spent a lot of time in this area just rock scrambling and taking a ton of photos.
In this photo you can see the large main parking lot on the right with the gift shop/park headquarters in the distance. In the foreground is the mill race.
The ranger at the park told us of a couple of trails we could walk to. One of them he described as difficult so we decided to skip that one since we were pretty beat up already from a week of hiking. The other one was to a swinging bridge. We had to walk on the road a short distance before we'd reach the trail, but we decided to take that one because who doesn't like a swinging bridge?
We got to walk alongside the pretty Glade Creek most of the way.
And I got to see the backside of the grist mill. During the normal park season, this mill is still operating and open for tours.
Ya'll know I love a good rock formation and always have to stop and take a photo.
The road down to the swinging bridge trailhead was just lovely.
There were several people fishing in the river.
This is the road. I have no idea what they do if two cars are going in opposite directions. We had to step off the road when a park ranger's car wanted to pass.
Once we reached the trail head, we got off the road. This area was so pretty! It was filled with magical little walkways and lanterns that led to the cutest cabins.
It was one of those forests that made you wonder if this was where all the fairies lived.
And here is one of those cabins. I love the little narrow path that leads to it. There is no parking right next to the cabin. You have to park on the road, a short distance from your cabin, and haul everything in on foot.
I would love to come back here someday and spend a few nights in one of these cabins. I'm sure they fill up quickly though.
It wasn't long before we hit water again.
And there she was! The swinging bridge. The swinging bridge is a narrow, cable suspended footbridge that sways gently over the rushing waters of Glade Creek. It connects the two cabin loops in the park.
Here is a short video of me walking to the bridge and across it.
Since the swinging bridge isn't a hiking trail but just a connector of two cabin loops, we headed back to the Grist Mill. By now the sun was much higher and we got better photos.
Here's an interesting fact. Even though the mill looks super old it is actually a recreation. It was built in 1976 from parts of three historic mills. It is one of West Virginias most photographed spots, and I can certainly see why!
Can you spot me in the photo below? Having a person in the photo really gives you an idea of the massive scale of this mill.
The boys of course enjoyed having their photos taken on the massive rocks.
Even though we were disappointed we couldn't see much of the park (gosh, I'll never understand the purpose of park road closures in the east. If the snow is gone, open the roads!) it was worth the trip to this park just to see this gorgeous mill.
