The New River Gorge National Park and Preserve Canyon Rim visitor center recently got a facelift and hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday.
The $1.7 million dollar renovation includes an upgraded theater, new exhibits, and info on what to do and where to go in the park and adjacent national scenic river ways.
The New River Gorge National Park and Preserve Canyon Rim visitor center recently got a facelift and hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday.
The $1.7 million renovation includes an upgraded theater, new exhibits, and info on what to do and where to go in the park and adjacent national scenic river ways.
New River Gorge Park Ranger Dave Bieri said the park service wanted to have an orientation center for visitors.
“We tried to just kind of hit some of the highlights of the things that make this place special,” Bieri said. “There’s these explore panels throughout the exhibit that direct you to different places in the park.”
Biere said the ribbon cutting marks the end of the five-year project, but that more improvement projects for the park are on the horizon.
Airports are the cornerstone for the economic development and vitality of any region. As a key part of West Virginia’s transportation system, a viable airport network is the catalyst for state access to the national and worldwide marketplace.
While West Virginia is within driving range of a large percentage of the country, many visitors fly here.
Airports are the cornerstone for the economic development and vitality of any region. As a key part of West Virginia’s transportation system, a viable airport network is the catalyst for state access to the national and worldwide marketplace.
With the advent of COVID-19 in 2020, the state began to see a shift from business to leisure travel. West Virginia International Yeager Airport Director and CEO Dominique Ranieri confirms this.
“Just in the last couple of year’s we have completely changed our focus and who we advertise to and who we speak of when we talk to airlines, and that’s the tourism and leisure traveler.”
According to data from a study by tourism economic research firm Dean Runyan and Associates, in 2021 West Virginia experienced one of the most notable recoveries in the state’s tourism history. The state’s Almost Heaven” marketing campaign, initiated by West Virginia Tourism, was launched in 2018.
The New River Gorge became a national park and preserve in 2020. The following year, state and national parks enjoyed record-breaking attendance.
From white water rafting, to hiking, zip-lining, mountain biking, and winter skiing, West Virginia is recognized by Condé Nast Traveler, Lonely Planet, Luxury Travel and TIME Magazine as a leading global destination. Topping the list of most visited locations:
New River Gorge
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
West Virginia State Museum
West Virginia University
The Kruger Street Toy & Train Museum
Suspension Bridge
State Capitol
Berkeley Springs State Park
During the Governor’s Conference on Tourism in September, Gov. Jim Justice confirmed the state is enjoying an increase in visitors. In 2021 he said the state’s tourism industry experienced a 3.8 percent increase over pre-pandemic levels.
Justice said he believes West Virginia’s tourism economy could hit $5 billion this year for the first time in the state’s history. He said continued growth is dependent on reliable airport facilities.
“If you can’t get people here and get people to and from and you can’t get them there with some level of competitiveness like in other states, you’re really behind the eight ball,” he said. “To me you’re really splitting the bulls eye because airports are the heart of everything we have, I mean they really and truly are, as far as tourism especially.”
Early in 2020 the pandemic impacted the entire aviation industry and air travel nearly screeched to a halt. The state’s commercial service airports witnessed a far reaching reduction in scheduled airline service. The loss was compounded by a big drop in parking and landing fees, concessions revenues, user fees and fuel sales.
Since that time the state’s airports have experienced a comeback. In their 2021 Travel Impacts Study, research firm Dean Runyan and Associates reported visitors to West Virginia’s national parks spent $109 million.
“You know, we’ve made the right moves on the chess board, we’ve started promoting who we are, beyond that, we’ve upgraded our parks, we’ve done lots and lots of stuff,” Justice said. “It is really happening right now, and it is unbelievable.”
The governor said while critical to tourism growth, he admitted to what he termed a “deficiency” in the state’s airport system. He said the state must remain competitive and invest in additional flight service.
“I believe in West Virginia beyond good sense and I see the opportunities,” he said. Right this minute tourism is exploding, but we’re still getting the parsley around the sides of the plate, there’s so much more to come. It’s off the charts.”
West Virginia’s airport system encompasses 24 publicly owned, public-use airports. Seven of those, including Yeager in Charleston; Huntington Tri-State and North Central West Virginia Airport near Clarksburg, are primary use, or commercial service airports.
All 24 airports are included in the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA’s) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS).
Cindy Butler is the Commissioner of the West Virginia Department of Transportation’s new Division of Multimodal Transportation Facilities. In her role she oversees the aeronautics division which promotes air safety and helps airports secure state and federal funding. That includes matching grants through the aviation fuel tax for airport improvements.
“Aero in the past has historically been able to commit to half of whatever the federal match is,” Butler said. “Now as the grants get larger we don’t know that we’d be able to do the entire amount but as long as we’re getting the special fuel aviation tax in our special revenue fund we will continue to support our airports in any way we can.”
In a 2020 Aviation Economic Impact Study the Aeronautics Commission identified visitor spending as a primary economic benefit to West Virginia’s aviation system.
“We’re looking at about an average of 147,000 visitors through the seven commercial airports, basically saying that they would be the tourist type – looking at lodging spending, retail, local transportation, food and beverage and entertainment,” Butler said. “Probably about a $49 million spend, but the total impact of everything would be about $107 million when you look at all the other factors.”
In September West Virginia International Yeager Airport completed a runway rehabilitation project and more recently the FAA approved an environment study for an expansion of the facility and terminal. As the state’s busiest commercial service facility, Yeager offers flight service on American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and Spirit Airlines. Passengers can fly nonstop to Charlotte; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Atlanta; Orlando; and Myrtle Beach. The airport is currently in active negotiations with the airlines to add additional flight service to Houston and Dallas.
Airport Director and CEO Dominique Ranieri says easier access fuels tourism spending.
“We know through multiple different studies and data points that visitors that come via air travel tend to stay longer and spend more money,” Ranieri said. “Making it easier to get to West Virginia will help the entire tourism economy and entire state.”
The airport is working with the Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau to promote Charleston and the surrounding region and can now advertise attractions like white water rafting and skiing to visitors from the Orlando area which the airport offers flight service to through Spirit Airlines.
With the opening in April of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection General Aviation Facility, Yeager is now positioned as the only international port of entry in the state. The airport’s new Bill Noe Flight School is training future pilots at a time the industry faces a major pilot shortage.
With increased capacity and new flight service Ranieri said Yeager is a gateway that connects West Virginia to the national and worldwide marketplace.
“We are fortunate to be pretty centrally located here in Charleston to most of the attractions,” Ranieri said. “The New River Gorge National Park, we are kind of the gateway to that; it’s only an hour’s drive from here and in the winter your ski destinations are not far from here as well.”
The North Central West Virginia Airport in Harrison County boasts the largest commercial service runway in the state. Airport director Rick Rock says the airport was starting to make a comeback before COVID-19. He says new flight service will facilitate a current and projected future increase in visitor traffic.
“Our current terminal was built in 1960, it’s certainly served us well but it’s outlived its useful life, so in planning for that increased traffic we’re hoping to see a new terminal in place by the last quarter of 2024,” Rock said.
Rock says with airport upgrades, and more connectivity, travelers have easier access to destinations. Contour Airlines, which has served Parkersburg and Beckley since 2017, will replace SkyWest as their new Essential Air Service provider. As of Dec.1 flights to Chicago and Washington D.C. will use Charlotte as their singular hub, a move Rock expects to bring more people back to West Virginia. Allegiant Airlines offers flights to Florida and has plans to expand further.
West Virginia Secretary of Tourism Chelsea Ruby says since the launch of their “Almost Heaven” advertising campaign in 2018, the state has experienced rapid growth, exceeding pre-pandemic highs with annual traveler spending topping $611 million.
With West Virginia just an overnight’s drive for two thirds the state’s population, the focus has traditionally been on the drive market. But Ruby said attention is now on the state’s “fly market.”
“We went from the three hour drive radius to about a four and a half drive hour radius added into new markets,” Ruby said. “Since that time we’ve started looking at fly markets and started concentrating on areas like Charlotte, Chicago- places we have direct service.”
The department’s advertising assistance to its tourism partners and airports like Yeager is working to attract visitors. The hope is to encourage West Virginians to “fly local” – something Ruby says encourages airlines to add more flight service.
West Virginia Tourism is working with tour operators to attract visitors from the international market, with a focus on Canada and Europe. Ruby says visitors from Germany, in particular, love outdoor recreation and enjoy longer vacations.
“It seems like the Germans take longer road trips, they’re going to visit multiple states, so we seem to be a good fit for the German market and will continue to invest there.”
Appalachia boasts some of the wildest rivers on the East Coast, including the Gauley, the Youghiogheny, and the New River. And though whitewater paddling is now popular in the region, it wasn’t long ago that paddlers first started exploring these rivers, designing their own gear and even building their own paddles. Inside Appalachia Folkways Corps Reporter Clara Haizlett spoke with some of these DIY paddle makers about their love for the craft and perhaps more importantly – their love for the water.
It was a cloudy day on the New River. I was in a canoe, pulling a wooden paddle through the water. The lyrics of a Bob Dylan song were stamped on the glossy blade.
The paddle’s maker was Jon Rugh, who was alongside me in a bright blue kayak. He told me it’s one he made for his wife, Rachel.
“I got a bird that whistles. I got a bird that sings,” he sang. “But if I ain’t got my Rachel, life don’t mean a thing.”
Striped with different kinds of wood, the paddle weighed less than I expected. But it felt sturdy, too. Rugh’s paddles are made for whitewater.
Wooden paddles aren’t commonly used on whitewater; most boaters use paddles made from fiberglass and plastic. When I was a raft guide for a summer, I’d occasionally see the flash of a wooden paddle on the river. I would crane my neck to watch it slice through the rapids. It was always the best paddlers who used them and each paddle had its own story.
Rugh started making paddles after studying sculpture and ceramics in college.
“I felt like I had a very wide pool of skills, but it was a very shallow pool,” he said.
Clara Haizlett
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Jon Rugh carves at a wooden paddle blade.
He says he wanted to focus on one skill and become an expert at it. He chose paddle-making because of his love for whitewater kayaking.
Today, Rugh runs his own business out of his basement in Blacksburg, Virginia. It’s called Shade Tree Paddles.
In his basement shop, more than a dozen paddles hung on the wall. Both new and old, shiny and cracked, they all crowded together – waiting to get back on the water.
“This is one of the first paddles I ever made,” he said, as he reached for a cobwebbed paddle hanging on the rack.
“I used it maybe once, because it was not very good,” he said with a laugh.
He’s discovered that paddle-making is a slow, complex process that requires specific, high-quality wood.
“You’re making a paddle that somebody’s life is reliant upon, so you can’t make any shortcuts,” he said.
The Inuit are credited with inventing what we know as the kayak and the double-faced paddle. But these designs weren’t made for whitewater, and for centuries, many rivers were largely deemed unnavigable.
But with the technology that emerged from WWII, like fiberglass and synthetic rubber, adventurers took to the rivers – learning to canoe, raft and kayak on whitewater.
“People had to make their own gear, people had to make their own kayaks,” Rugh said. “And then there would be people who would build paddles.”
That includes people like Keith Backlund. In all of my conversations with different paddle makers, I kept hearing his name in particular. They say Backlund revolutionized the craft. His paddles were specifically designed for whitewater and they were so special they were known by his last name.
“They were these prized possessions,” Rugh said. “You’d say, ‘Hey, can I try a paddle?’ And they’d say, ‘Heck no! That’s my Backlund. Nobody touches my Backlund except for me.’”
Backlund died soon after Rugh started getting into paddle-making, but his legacy was carried on by the apprentices he took on during his career – the first of whom was Jim Snyder.
Courtesy Jim Snyder
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Jim Snyder works on a paddle in his shop in Preston County, WV.
Rugh would study Snyder’s paddles and email him with questions – about both the building process and the business side of things.
“One of the things that Jim told me early on is that paddle-making is a vow of poverty,” Rugh said. “And like most things he is proven to be correct.”
Rugh sells his paddles for close to $600 each. While that might seem like a good chunk of change, when you consider the weeks and sometimes months of labor involved, Rugh says he would be hard pressed to go full-time.
For now, he works at a woodshop to support his family and just makes paddles on the side. But Jim Snyder has been a full-time paddle maker for about 47 years. I called him up at his home in Preston County, West Virginia, to ask him about it.
“Having real financial support for myself would have been a smart thing,” he said with a chuckle. “But I just wanted to play a lot. I didn’t care if I was poor, and hardly had enough firewood.”
Snyder told me it hasn’t been a financially stable career, but it’s been fulfilling.
“If you look at it, from my perspective, there was actually the danger of getting a job that would pull me into some career track that I didn’t really want to be in,” he said. “Because I really wanted to be a paddle-maker.”
Snyder says making paddles is a transformational process. Turning a tree in the ground into a paddle in the water is like bringing the wood back to life.
“When the wood is cut down and stored, it’s like it goes to sleep,” he said. “Then when it’s finally built into a paddle and used on the river, it thinks the wind is still blowing.”
Courtesy Christine Vogler
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Christine Vogler paddles over a waterfall with her Jim Snyder paddle.
And the paddles he makes are built to last a lifetime. For some paddlers, they are just a stylistic choice. But for Christine Vogler from Asheville, North Carolina, Snyder’s paddles have allowed her to keep kayaking.
“I simply cannot paddle without a Jim Snyder paddle,” she said. “It’s like my lucky charm.”
Vogler has a genetic condition that affects her connective tissue. When she started kayaking, she says her shoulder would dislocate all the time. She tried physical therapy, and eventually had surgery. But she kept having pain until she tried one of Jim Snyder’s paddles.
“I just was able to paddle without pain,” she said. “It was revolutionary for me.”
Paddle makers say wooden paddles aren’t as stiff as the ones off the shelf, making them more gentle on the body. For Vogler, it goes even deeper than that.
“For some reason it feels like you’re more part of the water – working with the water, moving with it,” she said.”Paddling with a wooden paddle feels more spiritual somehow.”
There aren’t many custom paddle-makers in the region like Rugh and Snyder and there’s high demand. Rugh has already started a waitlist for next year, and Snyder has stopped taking any new orders until things slow down.
Snyder says it’s a supply issue. He’s the supply.
“The supply’s not meeting the demand,” he said. “The supply doesn’t want to.”
Snyder says he’s not interested in scaling up. He’d rather spend his time on the river.
“In the summer, I work half a day and go play half a day. And that works just fine,” he said.
Back at his shop in Blacksburg, Rugh slowly chips away at a paddle – carving it slowly with hand tools.
“I’m trying to come to grips with the fact that there’s significantly more efficient ways to do this, but this is kind of how I like to do it,” he said. “So I think I’m just gonna keep doing it that way. Because otherwise it wouldn’t be so much fun.”
Rugh is always experimenting with new designs and trying them out on the river. I asked him if it’s ever frustrating. He said no.
“If I did it right the first time, then I wouldn’t have to build anymore, I guess,” he said.
Rugh says the craft has also kept him focused on being on the water.
“I get jealous of my paddles,” he said. “They get to go out more than I do.”
This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council. The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.
Some rafting guides are making practice runs before the start of the fall season on the Gauley River.
Adventures on the Gorge Vice President Dave Arnold tells WVVA-TV that his guides are looking for any changes on the river from this summer’s severe flooding.
The season starts Friday when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers begins lowering Summersville Lake to its winter level through releases at the Summersville Dam.
Water also had to be released after Summersville Lake’s level increased dramatically during late June storms.
Steve Keblesh of outfitter Summersville Lake Retreat and Lighthouse says the floods and subsequent water release could have moved and reconfigured rocks to make navigation on the rapids different than previously known. He says the first release Friday will help guides see if any changes have occurred.
West Virginia’s whitewater rafting industry saw a 3 percent increase in visitors last year compared to 2014.
State Division of Natural Resources figures show traffic on the New, Gauley and other West Virginia rivers totaled 134,082 customers in 2015, up 3,900 customers from the year before.
But that’s down significantly from 2009 to 2011, when more than 150,000 rafters tackled West Virginia’s whitewater annually.
Mirroring downturns in the travel and leisure industries that followed the 2001 terrorist attacks, West Virginia rafting companies have struggled to approach the peak season of 1995, when there were more than 257,000 visitors.
But Dave Arnold of outfitter Adventures on the Gorge says low gas prices have made traveling more affordable, and the industry is gearing up for the start of the summer rafting season.
West Virginia’s Economic Development Authority has accepted its first loan application from a whitewater rafting company since lawmakers allowed the agency to approve public-assisted financing for such businesses.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that the agency on Thursday preliminarily approved a $3.4 million low-interest loan for River Expeditions, a whitewater guide company in Fayette County.
According to agency documents, the application would allow the company to use the government-subsidized loan to lower the interest rate on existing debt and is expected to increase employment at the rafting business from 107 to 148 people over the next three years
River Expeditions is the first outdoor adventure company to take advantage of a new law that opened up financing opportunities offered by the WVEDA to whitewater rafting operations in the state.
