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The Greenbrier River Trail follows the Greenbrier River for about 77 miles from North Caldwell, near Lewisburg, up the valley to Cass Scenic Railroad State Park. It is a West Virginia state park in its own right and the longest rail trail in the state. The surface is packed, crushed limestone on an old Chesapeake and Ohio grade, so the riding is easy and the climb toward Cass is barely noticeable. The corridor passes Renick, Seebert, and Marlinton, threads two tunnels and crosses 37 bridges, and runs beside Watoga State Park, Seneca State Forest, Calvin Price State Forest, and the Monongahela National Forest. Rustic campsites sit along the river for multi day trips.
Greenbrier River Trail
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Greenbrier River Trail has about 103 to 161 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, running, biking, birding, and walking, with May, September, and October the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Greenbrier River Trail!
In half of past years, color along the Greenbrier River Trail peaks October 14 to 23, typically around October 18. The trail has 60% deciduous coverage, with the majority being chestnut oak, red maple, northern red oak, yellow-poplar, and sugar maple.
The last lumber raft floated down the Greenbrier in June 1902, two years after the railroad made the river drives obsolete. Jacob Marlin and Stephen Sewell had settled at the mouth of Knapps Creek by 1749, the first Europeans in the valley. By the 1870s sawmills upstream were rafting cherry and other lumber down the river to Ronceverte. In 1894 a splash dam went in below Renick to push logs along. The Chesapeake and Ohio chartered the Greenbrier Railway Company in November 1897. Construction began in July 1899. The first train reached Marlinton in October 1900, and rails reached Cass by that December. Unlike the C&O coal branches, the Greenbrier Division hauled timber. Within a decade it served more than 40 sawmills, tanneries at Marlinton and Frank, and the Renick stone quarry. The last passenger trains ran in January 1958. The big customers closed through the 1960s and 1970s, and the final freight ran on December 27 and 28, 1978. The tracks came up in 1979. In 1980 Governor Jay Rockefeller signed the bill creating the Greenbrier River Trail State Park, the C&O deeded the right of way south of Durbin to the state that June, and the corridor opened to trail use the same year. Floods in November 1985 and June 2016 tore out sections. The 2016 storm left seven major washouts, and volunteers and park crews had most of the trail open again by that fall. In 2012 the trail joined the Rail-Trail Hall of Fame.
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