@Scoutingcouple goes Bridgewalk-ing in the New River Gorge

What is the best 1.25 mile hike we have taken?  Well most of the trail was steel and what we missed in having our @lowaboots Renegades in good clean dirt, was made up by the awesome view and our great bridge walk guide Doug.  Doug took us on a private look on the underside of the bridge and was quite the historian about the structure. (Who knew Homeland Security regularly inspects it, who knew that those massive beams are all hollow, who knew that you can zip line off the underside of the bridge on Bridgeday?)  We loved this trip and it was worth every dime of the $69 we each had to pay.  In fact, Steve thought he had his money's worth about 100 feet onto the bridge.  The remainder of the 3,031 feet length of the bridge cat walk was pure free fun.

@ScoutingCouple on a cold March Saturday high on (and in) the New River Gorge

From the Bridge Walk webpage:
"Walking on the catwalk through the interior structure of the New River Gorge Bridge gives visitors a whole new perspective of what an engineering marvel it really is. Spanning the New River Gorge required great design, engineering, and construction skills. It is truly amazing to be so close to the very bolts and beams that came together to form the Bridge." Head to their website for the story of the engineering and construction of the bridge.  That bridge turned a 40 minute drive through the gorge on mostly one lane road into a 4 minute 4 lane trip and connected two halves of WV that rarely saw each other on a daily basis.  Living in Mount Hope meant trips to Fayetteville to the west was possible and across the gorge to the east nearly impossible or impractical.

Standing 851 feet above the river is a truly awesome experience and everyone should do this. Watching the falcons and the pigeons was also lots of fun.  (... so few pigeons because of the park service introduction of falcons and you have to ask Doug why that is a great thing for the Bridge.)

Follow @WVBridgeWalk and get your boots up in the air...  851 feet up to be exact!

Looking south to Fayette Station Rapids and the old bridge on the 40 minute trip through the gorge.

The shadow of the bridge on the North Side

See lots more pictures after this jump...

The catwalk

Lowa Renegades GTX at 851 feet above the New River

CSX heading south with a load of coal

The top of the arch of the bridge

CSX heading south with a load of coal

This view of the CSX gives a real sense of height

@scoutingcouple with their Lowa Renegade GTX's each on their half of the bridge.  Exactly halfway across.

Steve and Kimberly Myers