Upper South

The Midland Trail

US 60 over the New River country

Open the interactive map →

Drive

White Sulphur Springs → Charleston

Distance

~120 miles

Time

1–2 days

Highways

US 60

Avoids

I-64

Region

Upper South

US 60 follows the old James River & Kanawha Turnpike over the mountains the interstate tunnels under: the Greenbrier with a declassified congressional bunker beneath its wallpaper, Hawks Nest's gorge overlook above the tunnel disaster that killed hundreds of Depression-era drillers, the gloriously shameless Mystery Hole, a waterfall at the roadside, and Booker T. Washington's boyhood salt town at the end. Resort splendor and buried history on one two-lane.

📍 Midland Trail byway signs; the Hawks Nest workers' memorial deserves the stop the overlook gets.

The drive, segment by segment

Greenbrier Country

White Sulphur Springs → Rainelle · ~35 mi

The grand resort and Lewisburg's Carnegie Hall, then the long timber grades west.

• 🛏️The Greenbrier — White Sulphur Springs

  The 1913 grande dame hiding a declassified Cold War bunker built to house Congress; the bunker tour is the resort's best-kept open secret.

• 🏘️Lewisburg — Lewisburg

  A 1782 town with one of the few Carnegie Halls still in continuous use, plus a downtown that keeps winning 'coolest small town' honors and shrugging.

The Gorge Rim

Rainelle → Gauley Bridge · ~45 mi

Hawks Nest's overlook and memorial, the Mystery Hole, and Cathedral Falls at the roadside.

• 🌲Hawks Nest — Ansted

  A stunning gorge overlook above a grim ledger: the 1930s Hawks Nest Tunnel killed hundreds of silicosis-stricken drillers, most of them Black migrant workers. See both.

• 🛸The Mystery Hole — Ansted

  Gravity misbehaves indoors for a modest fee, as it has since 1973; the Volkswagen in the roof sets expectations correctly.

• 🌿Cathedral Falls — Gauley Bridge

  A 60-foot veil falls steps from the highway shoulder, one of West Virginia's most photographed and least effortful.

Kanawha Salines

Gauley Bridge → Charleston · ~40 mi

Down the river past Malden's salt history to the gold-domed capital.

• ✊Malden & African Zion — Malden

  Booker T. Washington worked these salt furnaces as a boy and worshipped at African Zion Baptist; the little church still stands as his true starting line.

Worth a detour

• New River Gorge Bridge — The newest national park's icon, ten minutes south at Fayetteville; on Bridge Day each October they jump off it on purpose.
• J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works — A seventh-generation family revival of Kanawha brine salt in Malden; the tour ends at the tasting table.