I am fascinated by the New River and honestly had no idea the Appalachian Trail would cross it. I thought, after getting farther into Virginia, I would reach the other side of the Eastern Divide to stay and cross Atlantic-bound rivers like the James, the Roanoke, the Shenandoah. Not yet. The New River, like those that cross the AT in North Carolina and Tennessee, flows to the Ohio.
The New River came to my attention long ago. It has famous whitewater and a gorge featured on the West Virginia state quarter. (The river begins in North Carolina, runs north through western Virginia, then cuts through the heart of West Virginia.) Said gorge was designated the newest national park in the 2019 Great American Outdoors Act, which I paid close attention to as it passed Congress because I was an intern in DC at the time. Then, I read some point that the New River is one of the oldest rivers in the world. This became a favorite misnomer of mine. it also raises the question: what does it mean to be an old river anyways?
Good old rivers
This question is best answered simply by looking at Google Maps satellite view or even better, an elevation map. The Appalachian Mountains in Virginia are a series of folded ridges, and most creeks flow down one side of the ridges, then join into rivers that flow laterally between the ridges, perhaps cutting through a few other ridges along the way.
The Appalachians are a broad mountain range, a vast expanse of hilliness. Many rivers cut across some of its ridges. For example, the Nantahala River swerved across my path at mile 136 and then back the other way at mile 164. I also crossed the Pigeon, the French Broad, and the Nolichucky. The New River, though, slices through everything. Rather than flowing east or west, it runs roughly south to north, carving through the whole of the Appalachians however it pleases. No other Eastern river does it quite like this. The conclusion, then, is that the New River predates the mountains themselves, and as the mountains rose, the river carved through them. Scientists think the New River formed some 65 million years ago, when the Atlantic Ocean was but a small sea, around the time the dinosaurs went extinct.
Riverine dynamism
The New River creates a continuous, low elevation corridor between the Atlantic coastal plains and the Midwest. It transmits fish, trees, and animals that cannot survive the higher ridges of the Appalachians but can thrive in the plains on either side. Now, it also creates a critical corridor for trade. As I crossed a bridge over the river, I also crossed 6 railroad tracks and a busy highway. During the Civil War, union troops invaded Virginia along the New River to raid a storehouse in Pearisberg and to try to burn a critical railroad bridge over the New River. They were repelled by a larger Confederate force.
The New River felt the hub of a more energetic region, a place for me to resupply in town, the site of construction of the contested Mountain Valley Pipeline, the sound of industrial activity. Rivers excite.. They power the dynamic elements of human and biological activity. This river in particular, for all these reasons, i love.
