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The Mon River Trail follows the Monongahela River for about 32 miles from the Pennsylvania state line, through Star City and Morgantown, and on past two Corps of Engineers locks to Prickett's Fort State Park, then up Pricketts Creek and through the Meredith Tunnel to Winfield Street in Fairmont. The ride is rail-grade flat with barely 150 feet of net change end to end. The Caperton Trail through Star City and Morgantown and the Marion County Trail at the Fairmont end are asphalt; the rest is compacted crushed limestone. Outside town the corridor is wooded river valley with meadows, rock outcrops, and long views over the slack water above Hildebrand and Opekiska dams.
Mon River Trail
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Mon River Trail has about 105 to 155 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, birding, biking, running, and walking, with April, May, 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 Mon River Trail!
In half of past years, color along the Mon River Trail peaks October 19 to 28, typically around October 23. The trail has 47% deciduous coverage, with the majority being black cherry, red maple, yellow-poplar, sugar maple, white oak, and northern red oak.
Trains on the Fairmont, Morgantown and Pittsburgh Railroad scattered so many sheep that herders nicknamed the line the Sheepskin. Long before that, the river itself was the road. Settlers raised Prickett's Fort in 1774 above the mouth of Prickett's Creek, where the trail's southern river end now sits. The railroad company was incorporated on December 10, 1883, and its line reached Morgantown in 1886, already owned and run by the Baltimore and Ohio. The branch tied the B&O at Fairmont to its Pittsburgh main line at Connellsville. Coal was the main cargo, with merchandise, petroleum, sand, glass, ice, and food behind it. Passenger service ended in 1953. The B&O folded into the Chessie System in 1972, and CSX took over in 1980. In December 1990 a landslide closed the line south of Morgantown, and CSX chose abandonment over repair. The Mon River Trails Conservancy formed in 1991, bought the corridor from CSX, and holds it under a lease with the West Virginia State Rail Authority. At the Fairmont end, the Marion County Parks and Recreation Commission bought 125 acres of Monongahela Railroad property in 1989 and finished the Marion County Trail, with its 1914 Meredith Tunnel, in 1993. Construction on the Mon River sections began in 1998, funded by more than 2 million dollars in Transportation Enhancement and Recreational Trails money. The system was named a National Recreation Trail in 2006 and entered the Rail-Trail Hall of Fame in 2020.
Deckers Creek TrailSheepskin Rail-Trail
