Sandstone Falls - New River Gorge National River

Note: This post is one of a series about our visit to New River Gorge and Bridge in late October 2018. Unfortunately, there was not a lot of color in the trees then. For details of the New River National River and links to other posts, please see New River Gorge and Bridge (Overview). Sandstone Falls is part of the New River Gorge National River.

Sandstone Falls marks the transition of the New River from a broad bottomlands river to a narrow mountain river flowing through a deep, boulder strewn, V-shaped gorge. It is the largest waterfall on the New River, spanning the river where it is 1500 feet wide. Sandstone Falls was created by the flow of the river eroding a soft rock layer that lies below the hard sandstone layer from which the falls gets its name. Divided by a series of islands, the river drops 10 to 25 feet over the individual falls in the different channels. There is an accessible trail and boardwalk combination on the western side of the river, which crosses several channels; the length is about 0.2 miles. The walk provides (relatively) close-up viewing of the western side of the falls in multiple locations. The featured image (Sandstone Falls 1) and Sandstone Falls 2 in the Additional Images section were both taken from the boardwalk.

The trip to Sandstone Falls and the boardwalk from the Sandstone Visitor Center involves an 11 mile drive south (upstream) on the eastern side to Hinton, WV, across the New River, and then 8 miles north (downstream) on the western side to the boardwalk area. When we were there, the northbound road was undergoing major construction, rebuilding and widening it from 1-1/2 to 2 lanes. The park service warned of delays up to 30 minutes which we fully encountered.

There are two overlooks on the road south to Hinton: the Sandstone Falls Overlook provides a view of the falls from 600 feet above the river while Brooks Overlook looks down on the mile-long Brooks Island.