As the National Park Service continues its annual week to draw attention to its properties around the country to encourage tourism, the process is a bit different this year, as it comes at a time when the Department of Government Efficiency has reduced budgets. The Washington Examiner is taking a closer look at those effects and how you can celebrate at a park near you in the coming days and weeks. In part five of our series, “National Park Week: The state of America’s outdoors,” we examine a park you may not have heard of.

New River Gorge National Park & Preserve became the nation’s newest National Park in 2020, but many Americans may not be familiar with it.

Preserving 53 miles of the New River, the park covers over 70,000 acres throughout the beautiful hills and mountains of southern West Virginia.

Visitors to New River Gorge can participate in myriad outdoor activities, from whitewater rafting on one of the oldest rivers on Earth and conquering the “Hello Rock!” rapid to hiking and biking along an old railroad grade.

“When looking out from Grandview, Diamond Point, Long Point, or one of the many other viewpoints in the park, we are actually looking at a globally significant forest containing the most diverse flora of any river gorge in the south and central Appalachian Mountains,” the New River Gorge website reads.

“Here in southern West Virginia, the New River has sliced through the mountains, creating a mosaic of habitats: unfragmented forest, cliff and rimrock habitats, forest seeps and wetlands, and mature bottomland forests. These habitats provide a refuge for endangered mammals and rare birds and amphibians.”

Railroad tracks through the park represent an important part of West Virginian and American history. According to the park, they were invaluable in opening the “rugged and isolated” terrain to the outside world in 1872.

The New River earned national river status in 1978, and Congress began talks of redesignating it as a National Park in 2018, according to a report.

After concerns regarding hunting and fishing were quelled, the redesignation effort gained popularity with the West Virginia congressional delegation and was incorporated into an omnibus bill in late 2020.

New River Gorge became a National Park when President Donald Trump signed the bill into law on Dec. 27, 2020.

The park’s chief of interpretation, Eve West, said in a December 2024 interview that visitation patterns have shifted upwards since it was redesignated.

“Of course, that was about the time [COVID-19] happened, so visitation was going up everywhere, not just here, but between COVID and also the redesignation, it really had a huge impact on our numbers here,” West said.

“Typically, after a redesignation, numbers will settle out at about a 20% increase, but we’re almost double that.”

New River Gorge is still witnessing a 40% increase in visitation compared to 2019 park-wide numbers, according to the report.

“It used to be, New River was just a place people passed through to get to Shenandoah, to get to the Smokies and other areas, but we have truly become a destination point now. We are a place where people will come, spend three days a week, you know, it has really changed that a lot,” West said.

Rafting and high-adventure activities are key attractions for many coming to the park.

“The Lower Gorge of the New River is a premier whitewater rafting location with imposing rapids ranging in difficulty from Class III to Class V, many of them obstructed by large boulders which necessitate maneuvering in very powerful currents, crosscurrents, and hydraulics,” according to the park.

DOGE CUTS NATIONAL PARK STAFF AS VISITATION RATE PEAKS

Other key features of the park include “hidden gems” such as the Trump-Lily Farm and Richmond Hamilton Farm, which allow visitors to travel back to the early days of Appalachian subsistence farming and see what life was like for early settlers in the region.

“You know, it’s hard to say no to nature; it’s a place you can get out, be healthy, find solace,” according to West. “It’s a place you can have a bonding experience with friends and family, and I think we offer a lot of really, really good opportunities for the United States population right now.”