Stuart Recreation Area
A CCC-built recreation area on the Shavers Fork near Elkins with a campground, picnic shelters and river access — the practical basecamp for the central Monongahela National Forest and the Otter Creek and Cheat Mountain country.
Know before you go
- Close to Elkins for resupply
- Shavers Fork holds trout upstream and smallmouth lower down
What you can do here
Guides, gear and lodging near Stuart Recreation Area
Place-level placement for operators within range of this trailhead, put-in or crag.
List your business hereWho looks after it
Nearby in the Potomac Highlands
Dolly Sods Wilderness
A 17,371-acre federally designated wilderness on a plateau largely above 4,000 feet, containing wind-flagged red spruce, heath barrens, sphagnum bog and exposed rock.
Bear Rocks Preserve
The northern edge of the Dolly Sods plateau, owned by The Nature Conservancy: bare Pottsville sandstone slabs, one-sided spruce sculpted by prevailing wind, and blueberry heath dropping east into the Allegheny Front with a 3,000-foot view over the Potomac Highlands.
Spruce Knob
At 4,863 feet, the highest point in West Virginia and the high point of the entire Allegheny range.
Seneca Rocks
A 900-foot fin of near-vertical Tuscarora quartzite standing above the North Fork of the South Branch — the most recognizable rock formation in the eastern United States and the only true summit in the East that can only be reached by technical climbing.
Seneca Creek Backcountry
A network of trails below Spruce Knob following Seneca Creek through spruce and northern hardwood to a series of waterfalls, the largest around 20 feet.
Blackwater Falls State Park
A 57-foot falls where the Blackwater River drops into an eight-mile canyon, its water stained amber by hemlock and spruce tannins.