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In Pictures: A leap of faith at West Virginia’s Bridge Day
By Tom Adkinson
September 29, 2023
FAYETTEVILLE, W. Va. – Even if the West Virginia Mountaineers fill their 60,000-seat football stadium the third Saturday of October, that won’t even be close to the state’s biggest crowd that day. The crowd could be 20,000 to 40,000 more on a stretch of U.S. 19 for Bridge Day. That’s the site of the New River Gorge Bridge, and the attraction is watching normally sane people jump off toward the raging New River, which is 876 feet below. Some wear little parachutes, others are on rappelling wires and others are on ziplines. Organizers say it is the largest extreme sport event in the world. Expect to see about 800 daredevils take the plunge. The bridge is in the middle of the state (only 55 miles from Charleston), but it’s a world away from normal.
Flying high
Two Bridge Day jumpers get a quick look at the West Virginia scenery before deploying their parachutes for a glide toward the New River. Image from National Park Service
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West Virginia’s landmark bridge
The New River Gorge Bridge opened in 1977 and immediately became West Virginia’s signature structure. It is the longest single-arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere and is featured on the West Virginia state quarter and on a U.S. postal stamp. Bridge Day is the only day of the year it is not busy with highway traffic. Image from West Virginia Tourism
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Away he goes
Photographers suspended off the bridge capture the form of a solo jumper. The activity technically is BASE jumping, the sport of jumping from a fixed object. BASE is an acronym for four categories of launch sites – buildings, antennae, spans (bridges) and earth (cliffs). Image from National Park Service
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Unusual autumn colors
The parachute of this BASE jumper adds extra hues to the autumn colors of the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, which is the region’s year-round recreational attraction. The New River Gorge National Park is America’s 63rd national park and its newest. It got that designation in 2021. Image from National Park Service
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A look from underneath the bridge
People who would never dare jump off the New River Gorge Bridge might muster the courage to take a harnessed walk on the girders beneath it. The activity is called BridgeWalk, and it takes advantage of a straight-as-an-arrow, 24-inch-wide catwalk originally intended for bridge inspectors’ use. Image by Tom Adkinson
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Splashing in the New River
Rafting the raging rapids of the New River is how most people get a from-the-bottom-up perspective on the New River Gorge Bridge. To get the scale of the bridge’s height, realize that one Washington Monument and two Statues of Liberty would fit underneath it. Image from Adventures on the Gorge
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Trip-planning resources: OfficialBridgeDay.com, WVtourism and AdventuresOnTheGorge.com
(Travel writer Tom Adkinson’s book, 100 Things To Do in Nashville Before You Die, is available on Amazon.com.)
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