Hawk's Nest State Park, West Virginia

Take the Road Less Traveled...

Tik Tok Hawk's Nest

​We receive no compensation for reviewing Hawk's Nest State Park.

Sometimes, when you're traveling with an open mind and a little bit of curiosity, some of the best finds end up finding you.

We saw the sign for Hawk's Nest State Park while trying to find the road for our Airbnb.  Having been on the road for a few hours, with still travel time ahead of us, we decided to pull over and take a look.

The views were incredible.  The small lookout built into the side of the mountain overlooked the New River below.  The view spread out before us in all directions, giving you a "Hawk's Eye" advantage point of the valley below.  (Even though it's name for the bird's in the area, my first thought was the viewpoint!)  Across the street was a shop and a park, and we spent some time wandering around.  It was a great little find...

until we found so much more.

Miles to see and do

It wasn't until we were on our New River Gorge Bridge Walk when the guide pointed out Hawk's Nest to the group.  We were a little surprised, as we hadn't seen the bridge when we had made our stop.  We figured we just hadn't looked close enough and probably missed it.

Until we learned there were miles to hike, a lodge, tours, and much more. 

​We definitely had missed something.  

Early Sunday morning in April, we found the Lodge and Restaurant.  The park had a few visitors already, and the souvenir shop was open.  We took a walk to the lookout and saw what we had missed.  Where the smaller location opened up to the lower half of the river, we now had a true view of the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve.  The river lay out before us in both directions, and the bridge sat at the top of the valley, just within our view, connecting to halves of West Virginia.

It's a spectacular find.  As always, traveling on limited time, we couldn't do everything we wanted.  We were able to walk along the paths and see some of the area, and of course make a stop in the shop to pick up a reminder to return.  We could have spent our entire morning there.

(The two pictures are similar, but in the cloudy April morning, we were doing our best to capture the New River Gorge Bridge just at the top of the valley!)

Thank you, West Virginia, for preserving this land since 1935!  We didn't know our travels from Michigan would take us here, but we are so glad we didn't miss it!