Bluestone Turnpike

Sunday morning, I headed into Hinton for breakfast then headed back to Bluestone State Park.  I stopped near the road to the boat ramp for a nice view of Bluestone Lake.

Then I drove past the campground to the end of the road at the trailhead for Bluestone Turnpike Trail along Bluestone National Scenic River.

The trail was surprisingly overgrown, but I saw some wildflowers along the trail.

Carolina wild roses made pretty blooms.

In about 2 miles, there was a footbridge over Little Bluestone River and a gravel road access to the river.

Continuing on, there were a few places to go out for a view of the river, but much of the trail was weedy and overgrown.

At about 8 miles, the trail passes into Pipestem Resort State Park and became River Trail.  I turned around here.

On the hike back, I saw a little red eft in the trail.

I had managed to avoid the rain, but was still pretty wet from the grass and weeds growing over the trail.

After finishing my hike, I went to Weathered Ground Brewing and had a pizza and beer for lunch.  Heading back to the park, I parked at the boat ramp thinking there may be a small waterfall here.  I followed Rhododendron Trail up to the road, but didn't find anything.  Surveyor Branch Falls was further down towards the boat ramp just above where the creek flows into the lake.

There was a path down to the base, but it was really steep and slick, so I didn't attempt to go down.

It was a fairly nice waterfall though, free-falling over a ledge into the lake.

It was too early to head back to camp, so I drove down back into New River Gorge National Park and Preserve.  First, I made a quick stop at Brooks Falls, a small but very wide waterfall on New River.

Then I continued on to the Sandstone Falls parking area a few miles further up the road.

The boardwalk trail led out to several nice views of the falls.

I went to the end of the boardwalk and out to see the falls.

It started raining while I was out here so I didn't stay long.

From here, I headed back to camp.