Glade Creek Campground — New River Gorge National Park and Preserve

We stopped in the see if our 23ft camper fit and it did!! The spaces are very small all around the campground with about 3 exceptions if you feel comfortable driving down the dirt road. So glad we did. There were 2 other sites occupied when we stayed and it was soo quiet except the railroad every so often! Just serene.

Love this place. Roads are riddled with potholes. Careful in low rise cars. My Grand Prix Pontiac always made it just fine. I’ve seen a snake in the road before lol. I hope it’s open now sorry I don’t have an update. I will when I go next. Since COVID it has been closed >:( nevertheless, the hiking paths are awesome. Leads you to coal mining ruins OR to a beautiful water fall you can swim. I go there even if I’m not camping. There’s an awesome jump off at the top of the falls. Sand campground. You can kayak near the camp spots. Can be huge hydraulics at times. Locals can be sketchy sometimes just be nice. There’s one bathroom

A very nice free CG in New River NP W Va. Probably about a dozen spots for RVs and/or tents. Most are on the loop on the way in. I got lucky and nabbed a spot my Taco and FWC fit comfortably. This spot is last on the way out before exit. Quiet and peaceful near creek/river with boat ramp. The only noise was the occasional train rumbling by across the river.

There are only six drive up primitive sites, and if you can nab one on a weekend consider yourself fortunate. Also available are walk up sites, and in a pinch you can park your camper van in the boat launch parking lot overnight (which we did without problem until a site opened up) Spacious and wooded with hiking and boating right from camp. Much better than Grandview Sandbar, which is 6 miles up the gravel road.

In the New River Gorge National Park, you will not find the sprawling campgrounds found in many other national parks. In general, you're dependent on private and state campgrounds in the area or primitive gems offering limited walk-in or drive-in sites. This is one of those gems. It's farther down the road from Grandview Sandbar, so it definitely fills later. The road is graded, but still has potholes. 

Glade Creek offers both moderate sized drive-in sites somewhat removed from the river and a row of riverfront walk-in sites. The area is wooded. There is river access for small boats/rafts. Latrines are provided, but bring your own water or plan to treat water.

The drive in is best suited for cars, trucks, and smaller trailers. There are trails for hiking and biking in the area. Supplies are available in nearby Beckley.

If you want to arise early, drive back to the top of the gorge and over to Grandview for a sunrise view above the horseshoe bend.

Beautiful area, only a few sites. The creek joins the New River here, you can hear the water from the sites.

My pup and I car camped here last December and it was wonderful. Limited to no AT&T cell service; however, the park rangers drove through the area about twice a night so I always felt safe and knew I could use their phones if needed.

Stopped by on my way up north. Beautiful view of the river, which was high. There’s 5 pull in sites and 5 walk in tent sites. Multiple bathrooms, including ADA friendly, all clean. There were 2 other campers on a Saturday night, which was nice and quiet. It’s about 5 miles down a nice dirt road, easy to drive on. There’s no AT&T service upon arrival. A few spots you could locate a bar to send a message, but that’s it. Lots of trees to hang a hammock. Each site had a fire ring, picnic table and a pole to hang food from. No electricity or water so be sure to bring your own. Overall, enjoyed my stay!

I made sure to be a little early to make sure the drive in spots were not all taken. There are also spots right now the new river which in reality are nicer. The trailhead at the top of the campground was beautiful for hiking. Not great for trail runners though. Overall this place was beautiful clean and safe.

Great semi-primitive campground, I say semi because there are showers and bathroom facilities for the campers. At the very end of the road into the park there are about 8 camping spots. 3 drive in and 5 walk in, but the walk in sites are about 100 yards from the parking lot. Prior to the end of the road is the Sandbar campgrounds, which is a very popular and busy spot so get there early! Definitely one of my favorite campgrounds I’ve ever been to, absolutely beautiful!!! Don’t forget about the Weathered Ground Brewery, about a 30 minute drive from the park on U.S. 19, great beer, amazing food, and beautiful scenery!

We stayed the weekend of 3/13/20-3/15/20 and had fairly good weather despite the damp mornings. There is five drive-in sites and more walk-in sites on the edge of the camp. The drive-in sites filled and vacated several times throughout the weekend. The tent sites were closer than I thought, but were still nicely equipped with a fire pit, charcoal grill, and picnic table.

The camp had clean latrines (no running water) and was easily accessible from an offroad-like gravel entrance road. The camp is steps away from the Glade Creek Trail and the New River Gorge. The flowing Gorge can always be heard, the low rumble is peaceful at night. There is not much open space; this only proves to be a problem if your dog loves to fetch as much as mine does.

Overall, Glade Creek Campground is a nice and somewhat-remote camp that is accessible with a vehicle. The camp is presumably shaded year-round and is completely free.

Stayed one night on 9/7/19. Camped in campsite #1. I think the campsites where all full shortly after dark. Very quiet. Have new vault toilets. Heard a Barred Owl at night. Was able to let my dog off the leash down by the river to play and even played frisbee in our campsite and on the camp road. Trash bins on site. Charcoal grills at sites. The gravel road to get here is a fun drive. Had AT&T cell signal down by the river but no Sprint Signal.

One of my favorite places on this planet. The second oldest river in the world new river meet glade creek at the campgrounds. This place has trails that are to die for. An old railroad runs by glade creek and it is incredible.

No sources of freshwater available @ the campground.  The nearest convenient store is some miles away.  The campground is in the middle section of the New River Park system.  The busy areas of the park are to the north in the Canyon rim district.  The available 5 drive in sites go quick.  I was in the campground 3 days and never saw an empty spot.  The campground is clean and well maintained. A new vaulted toilet was being installed while I was there.

RANGER REVIEW: Primus Trailspork Tritan at Glade Creek Campground, Prince, WV

CAMPGROUND REVIEW:

Glade Creek Campground is located off Glade Creek Rd. further down and beyond Grandview Sandbar Campground…and is also part of the New River Gorge National River. https://www.nps.gov/neri/planyourvisit/campgrounds.htm

During our visit, in early May, it had been and was still experiencing heavy rains and flooding. Even then, it is a beautiful location. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ieJ-SoMxsMc

The Glade Creek Road to the campground is not too bad but there is a narrow one-lane bridge you must cross.

Glade Creek Campground has six (6) walk-in tent sites and five (5) drive in sites inside the loop for tents or medium sized RV/Campers. Keep in mind there is no water available (unless you filter from Glade Creek or the New River, which is sketchy) or electric. The pit latrines are state of the art and newer. Drive-in sites are gravel, fairly level and have picnic tables, lantern poles and fire pits. Walk-in tent sites are sand.

The price can’t be beat-Free! Maximum length of stay is 14 days. There is definitely enough to see and do to fill 14 days! There are no reservations…sites are based on availability…first come, first served.

Glade Creek Trail follows an old RR bed with easy terrain. Being early in the spring, there was still some deadfall across parts of the trail that required some maneuvering and even though it is a raised old narrow gauge RR bed, it still got muddy. Several trails break off Glade Creek trail…and worth taking. https://www.nps.gov/neri/planyourvisit/glade-creek-trails.htm Kates Falls being one of them. Bikes are permitted on the trails. There are plenty of additional noteworthy trails within a short drive. I always recommend stopping in at the New River Gorge Bridge Visitor’s Center…Rangers are a wealth of information for great local trails.

Home to the wood-warblers… birding is popular. Dedicated photographers were out in the downpour capturing photos of rare plant-life too. Pretty cool stuff.

A great campground to use as your base camp for checking out all the amazing sights in this area.

PRODUCT REVIEW:

Primus Trailspork Tritan

https://primus.us/products/trailspork-tritan?variant=38439223954 Note: This URL does direct you to the product listing. However, the first sentence is incorrect, this Spork model does not fold.

As a Review Ranger for TheDyrt.com I was provided the Primus Trailspork Tritan to test and review.

PROS

•Lightweight 7grams

•BPA-free Tritan

•Durable

•Won’t melt during cooking

•Won’t scratch pots or pans

CONS

•Not rounded enough

•Right edge of spork is sharp for plastic

The Primus Trailspork Tritan is a strong contender for the eating utensil “do all” category. The construction is robust…the girder style handle cutouts lighten it up but it doesn’t weaken the structure any. The cutouts resemble the pot cutouts on their Eta pots.

The “fork” portion works as good as any fork, even with short tines.

The “spoon” portion is where I, personally, see room for improvement. To me, the spoon cup is too deep and narrow, causing the sides to feel high when withdrawing the spork from your mouth. Which accentuates another problem. On the right outside sidewall of the spoon, the outside lip is a beveled edge to mimic a knife or spatula and is rather sharp…which with a shallower depth wouldn’t be an issue (but then the spoon might be ineffectively shallow). But I felt like that beveled edge is slicing my upper lip as I draw the spork out of my mouth. This sensation certainly slowed my eating down (which necessarily a bad thing).

The aforementioned beveled edge worked effectively both as a knife cutting through soft items and also as a spatula when scraping the last remnants of fettuccini from the pot walls.

I liked using the Primus Trailspork Tritan for stirring pot or pan contents without concern of it melting or deforming.

I won’t deny that I may be an oddity, but when camping or backpacking, I prefer using a spoon over a fork or combination.

Final Thoughts

It is very apparent I am not an engineer, nor pretend to be. So take my thoughts with a grain of salt. The Primus Trailspork Tritan is a good product and worth a look.

Definitely nab one of the free grounds early in the day, especially on weekends. Its a dirt road drive to the main sites and it's a little dodgy at night. the lot we picked had 6 campsites, with sand, fire pits, and a dock by the river. The community of people out there was great, friendly, and sociable. We learned that playing instruments is also very welcome!