I did something stupid yesterday. Really, I did something stupid the last three days, but last night I finally faced the consequences of my stupidity. I bought ginger and have been boiling it to make tea. When it was ready, I would hold a mug over the sink and pour the tea into the mug from the pot. Why didn’t I set the mug down in the sink to pour the tea in? I have no idea. Two nights ago I thought to myself that I was lucky I hadn’t accidentally poured tea on my hand. Still, I went through the same process last night and this time, I poured boiling tea on my hand. Somehow, I managed not to drop the pot or the mug. I set down the mug and ran cold water over my hand. My hand is fine today. It’s not even red. But it did hurt a lot for a few hours last night, which is why I’m writing this blog post today instead of yesterday. I wish I could say I’ve learned my lesson, but knowing me, I’ll probably be back to pouring boiling tea into a mug I’m holding in a few weeks.

Anyway, let’s get back to New River Gorge. I was there for two days. The first day, I hiked the Endless Wall trail. I thought I’d be walking next to the endless wall, but it turned out that I was walking on it. There were some great views of the river and the gorge, but it’s kind of hard to impress me after all the spectacular gorges I’ve seen on this road trip. It was still beautiful though.

My original plan was to drive 40 minutes to another part of the park after that first hike to do a quick 1 mile hike. But after the hike, I was feeling too tired to do another one. So I went to the visitor center to see the famous New River Gorge Bridge up close, learn more about the park, and eat my lunch. After lunch, I decided that instead of doing the 1 mile hike that I was too tired to do, I would do a 3 mile hike that was close by. That somehow made perfect sense. I hiked the Long Point trail and I liked it better than Endless Wall because you get a view of the bridge. It’s not nature, but it was amazing to see the bridge over the gorge and it’s something different from the other parks I’ve been at.

During the second hike, I rolled my ankle. I barely felt it, but a few hours later, my knee started hurting. My second day at New River Gorge was spent trying not to be frustrated by how easy it is to get one of my knees to hurt. Instead, I tried to be grateful for the fact that I have legs and knees that (mostly) work, that I have the time to rest, and that I wasn’t at a national park where missing a day of hiking would be devastating.

My plan that day had been to drive to the southern part of the park, do the hike I didn’t do the day before, and see some waterfalls. If I didn’t have more hiking planned for the rest of this week, I probably would have done it anyway. But I’m going to be with other people this week and I really didn’t want to have to sit those hikes out. So I rested, kept my leg up, did some red light therapy on it, and stayed off it as much as possible.

I had booked a Bridge Walk for 4:30 pm. It’s a tour where you walk on a catwalk under the New River Gorge Bridge. I figured we’d be walking very slowly on flat ground so it wouldn’t be too hard on my knee. I had never done anything like it before and I didn’t want to miss it. I was right about it being ok for my knee. I barely felt it. The adrenaline of being on a catwalk 851 feet above the ground probably helped with that.

The walk was scarier than I expected it to be. You have a harness on, so you’re completely safe, but you feel the bridge vibrating as cars drive above you, you feel the wind, and you’re walking on a very narrow catwalk that’s very high up. After a few minutes, I got used to it and didn’t feel scared anymore. Our guide told us that the bridge walk was started when New River Gorge was still a preserve. She said they wouldn’t have allowed it if someone wanted to start the bridge walk after it became a national park. Since it existed beforehand, they were grandfathered in. She also told us that despite it’s name, the New River is the second oldest river in the world. That was pretty cool to learn.

My tour was the last one of the day and there was a wedding there after us! We got to see it from far away as we were reaching the end of the bridge. The people behind me had binoculars and we were able to see the bride’s dress with them, which confirmed it was the wedding. I forgot to ask our guide how she had a harness on with the dress because we didn’t see one.

The bridge walk was my last adventure at New River Gorge. Today, I drove to Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, where I will have a visitor!