Kanawha Falls

Kanawha Falls is a broad, low waterfall over a sandstone ledge on the Kanawha River, about a mile below the New and Gauley rivers meet at Gauley Bridge. Its broken line of cascades and rapids stretches across the river. You can see the falls from US 60 without a hike, making this an easy pause on a drive through the area. Come for the width and force of the river; this is a different kind of view from a tall, single plunge.

A dirt parking area serves the road view. Give the falls a few minutes and look across the full ledge instead of focusing on one drop. For a photo, keep some river in the foreground so the cascades read as a long crossing; the brick hydropower buildings are part of the scene if you want to show how the river is used as well as how it looks.

The falls sit about a mile below the New and Gauley confluence. They mark a transition between New River and Kanawha River ecological systems and block fish moving upstream, a reminder that this low ledge has shaped the river beyond what you can see from the road.

Before US 60, the falls were a stopping point on the James River and Kanawha Turnpike. Aaron Stockton settled here around 1812 and had an inn operating by the 1830s; that history is carried on by the Glen Ferris Inn nearby. A low dam now diverts part of the river to a hydroelectric facility. Hydropower has been tied to this reach for more than a century, though the accounts differ on the current dam’s construction date.