New River Gorge National Park Trivia
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94 free New River Gorge National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This New River Gorge National Park trivia quiz covers the West Virginia park that was a national river from 1978 until Congress made it America's newest national park at the end of 2020. It ranges across the New River Gorge Bridge and its once-a-year Bridge Day, the class V whitewater of the Lower Gorge, the Nuttall sandstone cliffs that make it an East Coast climbing mecca, and the strange facts about a 'New' river that is one of the oldest on Earth and flows north. There is plenty of history in the hollows too: the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway that opened the gorge in 1873, the smokeless-coal company towns like Nuttallburg (where Henry Ford once owned the mine) and Kay Moor, the near-ghost town of Thurmond with its five residents, and the Hawks Nest Tunnel disaster just downstream. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one, so it works for a rafting-trip car game or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our Great Smoky Mountains, Shenandoah and US National Parks quizzes next.
30 of 94 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The gorge's rim cliffs make it one of the East Coast's top spots for which sport?
Rock climbing
Rock climbing: nearly every route is a single pitch of 30 to 120 feet on the hard cliff band just below the rim, with bolted sport lines and traditional cracks.
Q 02Commercial outfitters run trips down the Lower Gorge from April through October doing what?
Whitewater rafting
Whitewater rafting: outfitters have run the Lower Gorge's big rapids commercially since 1968, while the gentler upper river is better suited to canoeing.
Q 03New River Gorge National Park and Preserve is in which U.S. state?
West Virginia
It runs 53 miles down the gorge from just below Hinton to a state park near Ansted.
Q 04Which mountain system does the gorge cut through?
Appalachians
The gorge cuts through the Appalachians and is billed as the longest and deepest river gorge in that range, with more than 1,000 feet of rock exposed from rim to river.
Q 05In what year was the area redesignated from a national river to a national park and preserve?
2020
The redesignation came on December 27, 2020, making the gorge the state's first national park after 42 years as a national river.
Q 06Which president signed the 1978 law that first protected the gorge as a national river?
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter signed the National Parks and Recreation Act on November 10, 1978, creating New River Gorge National River after years of local campaigning.
Q 07Roughly how much of the old national river became a hunting-free national park in 2020, the rest becoming preserve?
Less than 10%
Less than 10%: only 7,021 acres became national park while 65,165 acres became preserve, which is why the official name carries both words.
Q 08Roughly how far along the gorge does the park stretch?
53 miles
The park and preserve protect 53 miles of the New River, a corridor of roughly 72,000 acres running the length of the gorge.
Q 09Which town sits closest to the famous bridge over the gorge?
Fayetteville
Fayetteville, the Fayette County seat, lies about two miles south of the bridge and is the base for most of the gorge's outfitters and guide services.
Q 10What type of bridge is the New River Gorge Bridge?
Steel arch
The New River Gorge Bridge is a steel arch bridge: a single steel arch springs from the gorge walls and carries the deck on slender columns, with no piers in the river.
Q 11How far above the river is the bridge's roadway?
876 feet
The roadway sits 876 feet above the New River, high enough that the Washington Monument would fit beneath it with more than 300 feet to spare.
Q 12In what year was the New River Gorge Bridge completed?
1977
The bridge was completed in 1977 and dedicated that October 22, after just over three years of construction that began in June 1974.
Q 13Which U.S. highway crosses the New River Gorge Bridge?
U.S. Route 19
U.S. Route 19 crosses the bridge as part of Corridor L, a divided highway linking the state turnpike with I-79 that opened the coal country to tourists.
Q 21In what year did Burton Ervin, 'father of Bridge Day', make the first parachute jump from the bridge?
1979
Burton Ervin made the first parachute jump from the bridge in the summer of 1979, landing on the riverbank below and inspiring the annual Bridge Day jumps that followed.
Q 22Roughly how many BASE jumpers take part in a typical Bridge Day?
About 400
About 400 BASE jumpers take part in a typical Bridge Day, many jumping more than once, before a crowd of tens of thousands along the roadway.
Q 23Guided 'Bridge Walk' tours use what feature running the length of the bridge under the roadway?
A two-foot-wide catwalk
Q 14The bridge is built from which weathering steel that forms its own rust-coloured protective skin?
COR-TEN
COR-TEN weathering steel needs no paint: it rusts to a stable brown skin, though engineers had to make sure the welds weathered at the same rate as the plates.
Q 15Roughly how much did the bridge cost to build?
$37 million
The bridge cost about $37 million, with its steel fabricated off-site and hoisted into place by cableways strung across the gorge during construction.
Q 16Which engineering firm designed the New River Gorge Bridge?
Michael Baker Company
Michael Baker Company, an engineering firm based near Pittsburgh, designed the bridge, choosing a single span so that no piers had to stand in the gorge.
Q 17The bridge appears as a location in which post-apocalyptic video game?
Fallout 76
Fallout 76, set in a post-nuclear version of the state, recreates the New River Gorge Bridge as a landmark that players can cross in its open world.
Q 18Bridge Day, when the bridge closes to traffic and opens to BASE jumpers, falls on which day each year?
Third Saturday in October
Bridge Day falls on the third Saturday in October, when the bridge closes to traffic from morning to mid-afternoon and jumpers launch from a platform on the deck.
Q 19In what year was the first Bridge Day held?
1980
The first Bridge Day was held in 1980, when a handful of parachutists jumped from the new span and turned a local celebration into an annual event.
Q 20Which activity was banned at Bridge Day from 1994 because it took too long to reel people back up?
Bungee jumping
In 1992 New Zealander Chris Allum had bungeed 823 feet from the span, a record for a jump from a fixed structure, stopping about 40 feet above the water.
The Bridge Walk follows a two-foot-wide catwalk built for inspections, 25 feet below the deck, with guests clipped to a safety cable for the crossing.
Q 24What distinction is the New River often credited with?
One of the oldest rivers on Earth
The New is often called one of the oldest rivers on Earth, perhaps holding its course for 65 million years or more, though the 'second oldest in the world' claim is disputed by state geologists.
Q 25Unusually for an eastern U.S. river, in which general direction does the New River flow?
North
It rises in the Blue Ridge and crosses Virginia before carving its gorge through the Appalachian Plateau.
Q 26In which state does the New River begin?
North Carolina
The New begins in North Carolina, where two forks join in Ashe County near the Virginia line, with the South Fork rising near Boone.
Q 27The New River joins the Gauley River to form which river?
Kanawha
The Kanawha then reaches the Ohio at Point Pleasant, so New River water eventually flows down the Mississippi.
Q 28What do geologists call the far longer ancestral river the New River once belonged to, before glaciers buried it?
The Teays
The Teays River once ran from the Blue Ridge across Ohio and Indiana toward the Mississippi; Pleistocene ice buried its channel and diverted its water into today's Ohio.
Q 29Which Virginia trader behind the 1671 Batts and Fallam expedition gave the river its old name?
Abraham Wood
Abraham Wood, the Fort Henry trader who sent Batts and Fallam west in 1671, is remembered in the river's early name, Wood's River.
Q 30Which frontier woman famously traversed the gorge in 1755 while escaping Shawnee captivity?
Mary Draper Ingles
Mary Draper Ingles, taken from Draper's Meadow in 1755, escaped from the Shawnee and walked hundreds of miles home along the Ohio and New rivers, through the gorge.