Fayetteville

I’ve stood under a lot of bridges, but nothing quite prepared me for craning my neck back on Fayette Station Road and watching the New River Gorge Bridge disappear into the haze eight hundred and seventy-six feet above the water. It’s one of the highest and longest steel arch bridges on the planet, and the town it’s named for barely advertises the fact — you just drive in past a modest courthouse square, a scatter of outfitter shops with kayaks strapped to their roofs, and a diner smelling of bacon grease, and then the canyon opens up at the edge of town like the ground gave way. Fayetteville was named “Coolest Small Town in America” back in 2011, and having wandered its four blocks of downtown twice now, I get it, even if “cool” undersells how strange it is to have a national landmark as your backyard.

The bridge and the gorge

Most of what Fayetteville is built around happens at the canyon rim, a couple of minutes from the courthouse. The main overlook near the visitor center gives you the postcard shot, but Lia and I preferred the boardwalk that drops down partway into the gorge, where the bridge’s underside becomes a cathedral of steel trusses and the New River is just a green thread far below. In October, Bridge Day turns the whole structure into a stage — the road closes, a quarter of a mile of pavement fills with vendors and rope-access crews, and BASE jumpers step off the railing all day long, parachutes blooming against the rock walls. We weren’t there for it, but every local we met still talked about it like it happened last week.

Rafting culture and the courthouse square

Fayetteville runs on whitewater the way other small towns run on football. Outfitter offices line Court Street and Wiseman Avenue, their porches hung with wetsuits drying in the sun, and by mid-morning vans loaded with rafts and paddles were already pulling out toward the put-ins downriver. We booked a half-day trip with one of the smaller outfits and came back sunburned and rope-armed, ravenous enough to eat everything on the menu at the Cathedral Cafe, a converted church downtown where stained glass throws colored light across the coffee cups. The courthouse itself, a squat brick building with a Civil War monument out front, anchors the square the outfitters and cafes all orbit.

Getting There

The nearest airport is Yeager Airport in Charleston (CRW), about an hour’s drive northwest on US-19. From Washington, D.C., it’s closer to five hours by car through the Appalachians; from Pittsburgh, roughly three and a half. A car is essential — Fayetteville and the gorge are spread across winding two-lane roads with no public transit to speak of, and you’ll want your own wheels to chase overlooks at sunrise.