West Virginia's rail-trail inventory is one of the best per capita in the country. The Greenbrier River Trail runs 78 miles with 35 bridges and 2 tunnels; the North Bend Rail Trail runs 72 miles through 13 tunnels; the Mon River system links Morgantown to the Pennsylvania line; and the Elk River Trail is still growing.
West Virginia's rail-trail inventory is one of the best in the country per capita, and the Greenbrier is a genuine bucket-list ride that almost anyone can finish.
Logging and coal grades converted to recreation — which means gentle gradients, dramatic scenery and tunnels.
Seventy-eight miles from Cass to Caldwell over 35 bridges and through 2 tunnels, following the river the whole way. Three days with a loaded bike, camping along the corridor.
Full guide to Greenbrier River Trail →The North Bend Rail Trail. Seventy-two miles and thirteen tunnels on the old B&O grade, plus the state's best railroad ghost story at Silver Run.
Full guide to North Bend Rail Trail →The Mon River system through Morgantown. Forty-eight connected miles from downtown riverfront out to farmland and the Pennsylvania line.
Full guide to Mon River Rail-Trail System →Ride the Greenbrier north to south from Cass — it's very slightly downhill, and the shuttle logistics out of Lewisburg at the finish are much simpler than the reverse.
The Greenbrier Valley sits on Greenbrier limestone, producing karst topography: sinkholes, springs, sinking streams and extensive cave systems, several with more than forty miles of surveyed passage.
Ohio River islands and the North Bend Rail TrailThe Ohio River corridor and the counties inland from it.
Cheat River whitewater and rail-trail networkThe northern counties around Morgantown.
Reservoirs, trout water, developing rail-trailThe geographic center of the state and its least-visited region.
Seventy-eight miles from Cass to Caldwell on a former Chesapeake & Ohio logging grade, crossing 35 bridges and passing through 2 tunnels, following the Greenbrier River the entire way.
A preserved company logging town and a working fleet of Shay geared steam locomotives that climb the original grades to Whittaker Station and on to Bald Knob — at 4,842 feet the second-highest point in West Virginia, reachable by train.
Ten miles of former railroad grade from Thomas down the Blackwater Canyon to Hendricks, dropping through hemlock and past waterfalls with the river below.
About 48 miles of connected crushed-limestone rail-trail through Morgantown: the Caperton Trail along the riverfront downtown, the Mon River Trail running north to the Pennsylvania line and south toward Prickett's Fort, and the Deckers Creek Trail climbing 19 miles east to Reedsville.
A long, narrow 1,730-acre impoundment of the Cheat River just east of Morgantown, with a shoreline rail-trail, boat access and the closest flatwater paddling and lakeside recreation to the city..
A developing rail-trail on the former Buffalo Creek & Gauley and Elk River Railroad grades, opening a long, remote corridor along the Elk between Gassaway and Clendenin.
Seventy-two miles on the old Baltimore & Ohio grade from Wolf Summit to Parkersburg, passing through 13 tunnels and over dozens of bridges — the longest tunnel run of any rail-trail in the region and part of the coast-to-coast American Discovery Trail.
A 1,405-acre park on a horseshoe bend of the North Fork of the Hughes River, with a lodge, cabins, campgrounds, a 305-acre lake nearby and direct access to the North Bend Rail Trail.
A reconstructed 1774 frontier refuge fort at the confluence of Prickett's Creek and the Monongahela River, with living-history interpretation, a boat launch and a trailhead on the Mon River Rail-Trail system..
Seventy-eight miles, thirty-five bridges, two tunnels and a gradient under one percent.
2–3 days · Apr–OctThe most approachable region in the state: a rail-trail at under one percent grade, warm river paddling, a preserved eighteenth-century town, and limestone country with commercial show caves..
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