Weekend Fun: Waterfalls

60°f/15.5°C, clear, but we can hear the highway 4 miles away, which means rain is on the way. Clouded over as I wrote this post.

Part 2 of Saturday's drive: waterfalls! We have been to these falls many times, but can anyone ever get enough of water over rocks?

These were further up US Route 60, which traverses the width of the US. In West Virginia it is known as The Midland Trail, and generally traces the path of early pioneers...who probably followed paths made by the natives. If you are familiar with the movie and story of Mary Ingles, this is part of her journey out of captivity.

I could not find a name for this pretty falls, and no one else stopped while we were there, so we had it all to ourselves. I caught Suzy as she checked out her photos of the water. 

Music to my ears:

The next stop was Cathedral Falls, one of West Virginia's most popular waterfalls, as you can see from the second photo. I had to wait to take that first one of Larry.  There were quite a few people there, everyone enjoying the site. The trail to get closer to the falls is steep, narrow, sloping, and wet in places, with no handrail, so I did not even attempt it. I remember last time we were here, my vertigo made a surprise visit when I was on that trail and Larry had to help me, so I did not try it this time. Larry was much braver than me!

We drove on to the our early supper destination, the Glen Ferris Inn at Kanawha Falls. This historic inn served as a hospital during the Civil War, and has had many distinguished visitors over the years.

The view of the Great Kanawha River from the large dining room is stunning,

and the grounds are lovely too.

We hope to return to stay overnight at the inn this summer, as there are many places nearby, including the new New River Gorge National Park, to explore.

Our last waterfall of the day was the falls of the Great Kanawha (pronounced Kun Aw'). Flooding on this part of the river, before any locks or dams, is fairly frequent, as this pile of washed-up timber shows.

The power plant once supplied the whole region with electricity. Why it wasn't updated and continued in use beats me.

For those arriving by kayak, perhaps? Actually the river was quite high on Saturday after the storms of the previous day.

These falls are not very steep, but they are mighty. And wide.

The Great Kanawha is formed by the junction of the New River and the Gauley, renowned among whitewater enthusiasts for its Class IV and V rapids. The "bus on the rock" is a local oddity, an old bus that was somehow placed on a large rock in the river years ago. It has been spruce up lately, so the bus is now hidden behind a tidy new porch.

For more photos and lore from this area, check out this post I wrote in 2021. And this one about the ancient stoneworks and another small waterfall, written in 2009.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.