New River Gorge, WV

Coming home to fresh tomatoes, squash, beans, and leeks was wonderful, but that's another post.

A impressive stop on the way home (to Asheville) from Buffalo was the New River Gorge National Park.

One of the oldest, if not the oldest, rivers in North America, the New River runs from Boone, NC west through West Virginia for some hundreds of miles before merging with another river and watershed.

A 'new' bridge over the Gorge (finished in 1977) is impressive.

A wonderful native species planting in front of the Canyon Rim Visitor Center

The gorge is spectacular, and belies its coal-mining past (there were rich veins of clean-burning coal that supported the region through the 1960's.)  The slopes are now cloaked with green forest, reflecting the speed at which the forest recovers in the Southern Appalachians, when seed sources are available.

Now the river attracts rafters drawn to the whitewater rapids and is a region that interests both adventure tourists and folks like me who were just dropping by.