New River Gorge Eco Tours

06/09/2025

We always love it when we find medicinal plants like this Black Cohosh on our EconTours. It is a native plant that has been used to treat menstrual cramps and menopause symptoms for hundreds of years.

The Appalachian people incorporated their ancestor's knowledge of plant medicine, and folded it together with the wisdom of the native people they encountered. The knowledge base is vast, and we enjoy passing these tidbits of knowledge on to our guests.

05/11/2025

Our ecotourists got an up close and personal encounter with this waterfall on today's New River Gorge Eco Tour.

05/01/2025

Amy shares the history of the New River Gorge Bridge with our guests on today's Eco Tour. These folks came all the way from Juneau Alaska to experience our national park!

04/21/2025

Land snorkeling! That's a great name for what we do at New River Gorge Eco Tours. A low-key walk focused on the tiny treasures instead of logging miles.

Feel like your hikes have gotten too focused on end goals and not enough on enjoying the journey? Montana's vast American Prairie says it has the solution.

04/09/2025

Join us on Friday, April 18 for the first New River Gorge Eco Tour of the year!

Register on Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/good-friday-new-river-gorge-eco-tour-tickets-1317412820209

04/02/2025

It's redbud season in the Gorge!

03/31/2025

And just like that, the Serviceberries are in bloom! ..
Now it's spring.

03/29/2025

The Southside Trail is the place to be this weekend for spring ephemeral wildflowers!

03/20/2025

Soooo close to spring we can almost taste it! This serviceberry tree is ready to pop and that's how we know that winter is finally over. Won't be long until Eco Tours start up again for the season. Join us!

03/10/2025

The earliest blooming tree in our forests is the American Hazel, but you won't see this tiny flower it if you aren't looking for it! This bloom is smaller than a match head and it eagerly awaits pollen from the nearby catkins (third photo) so it can spend all summer making hazelnuts. Hazel trees are monoecious, meaning they have both male and female reproductive structures on the same tree, so when we say the catkins are nearby, we mean very near, like on the same twig.

We love to eat hazelnuts, so we're rooting for this tree to hook up with itself!

03/09/2025

Serviceberry (or Sarvis) is a harbinger of spring. Appalachian tradition says that early settlers watched for these trees to bloom as a sign that the ground was thawed enough to dig graves and hold funeral services for people who had died during the winter.

We'll keep an eye on this tree and try to post photos of its progress over the next few weeks.