New River Gorge National Park Trivia
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91 free New River Gorge National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This New River Gorge National Park trivia quiz covers the West Virginia park that was a national river from 1978 until Congress made it America's newest national park at the end of 2020. It ranges across the New River Gorge Bridge and its once-a-year Bridge Day, the class V whitewater of the Lower Gorge, the Nuttall sandstone cliffs that make it an East Coast climbing mecca, and the strange facts about a 'New' river that is one of the oldest on Earth and flows north. There is plenty of history in the hollows too: the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway that opened the gorge in 1873, the smokeless-coal company towns like Nuttallburg (where Henry Ford once owned the mine) and Kay Moor, the near-ghost town of Thurmond with its five residents, and the Hawks Nest Tunnel disaster just downstream. Questions run from easy to expert with the difficulty shown on each one, so it works for a rafting-trip car game or a serious park-nerd challenge. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. If you enjoy it, try our Great Smoky Mountains, Shenandoah and US National Parks quizzes next.
30 of 91 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Besides the copperhead, which venomous snake lives in New River Gorge National Park?
Timber rattlesnake
Timber rattlesnake: it and the copperhead are the park's only venomous snakes, and neither is normally aggressive; the rattler tends to rattle and feint for a while before it will strike.
Q 02Outfitters run guided trips down the Lower Gorge from April through October in which sport?
Whitewater rafting
Whitewater rafting: the upper river's long pools suit canoes and fishing floats, but in the Lower Gorge big boulders force the river into powerful rapids that draw guided raft trips.
Q 03New River Gorge National Park and Preserve is in which U.S. state?
West Virginia
West Virginia: after the gorge was upgraded from national river to national park, yearly visits climbed from about one million in 2020 to nearly two million in 2025.
Q 04Which mountain system does the gorge cut through?
Appalachians
The gorge cuts through the Appalachians and is billed as the longest and deepest river gorge in that range, with more than 1,000 feet of rock exposed from rim to river.
Q 05Which park lost the title of America's newest national park to New River Gorge?
White Sands
White Sands had held the title for just a year: Congress upgraded both parks through clauses tucked into huge year-end bills, in December 2019 and December 2020.
Q 06Which president signed the 1978 law that first protected the gorge as a national river?
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter signed the act on November 10, 1978; it set the gorge aside to keep this stretch of the New River a free-flowing stream.
Q 07Most of New River Gorge was labeled 'preserve' rather than 'park' in 2020 so that which activity could continue?
Hunting
Hunting: only 7,021 acres at the heart of the gorge became national park, where it is banned, while more than 65,000 acres stayed open to hunters as national preserve.
Q 08Before New River Gorge, all but one 'national park and preserve' lay in which state?
Alaska
Alaska: a federal lands act paired its biggest parks, Denali among them, with preserves, and Colorado's Great Sand Dunes was the only one elsewhere until the gorge joined in 2020.
Q 09Which town sits closest to the New River Gorge Bridge?
Fayetteville
Fayetteville, just south of the bridge, was handicapped in the coal years by the steep mountainside between it and the railroad; the 1977 bridge and the tourism that followed revived the old county seat.
Q 10What type of bridge is the New River Gorge Bridge?
Steel arch
Steel arch: the designers also drew up a suspension bridge and a deck truss before choosing the arch, and the result is the longest steel span in the Western Hemisphere.
Q 11How far above the New River is the New River Gorge Bridge's roadway?
876 feet
876 feet: the 555-foot Washington Monument would fit beneath the roadway with more than 300 feet to spare, and the long drop is why BASE jumpers get one legal day a year here.
Q 12On which U.S. coin does the New River Gorge Bridge appear?
Quarter
Quarter: the span fills the back of its state's commemorative quarter, and in 2013 it entered the National Register of Historic Places although it was younger than the usual 50 years.
Q 13The New River Gorge Bridge is built from which weathering steel that forms its own rust-colored protective skin?
COR-TEN
COR-TEN weathering steel needs no paint: it rusts to a stable brown skin, though engineers had to make sure the welds weathered at the same rate as the plates.
Q 21Roughly how many BASE jumpers take part in a typical Bridge Day?
About 400
About 400: most make two or three leaps, and how many each manages depends on how many rigs they own and how fast they can repack a parachute.
Q 22Guided 'Bridge Walk' tours use what feature running under the New River Gorge Bridge's roadway?
A two-foot-wide catwalk
A two-foot-wide catwalk: built so inspectors could reach the steel, it has carried tour groups clipped to a safety cable since 2010.
Q 23The New River is often ranked among the world's what?
Oldest rivers
Oldest rivers: despite its name, estimates of its age run from 3 million to 320 million years, and state geologists dispute the popular claim that it is the second oldest in the world.
Q 14How was the New River Gorge Bridge's steel moved out over the gorge?
Cableways
Cableways: three-inch cables were strung 3,500 feet between towers on each rim, and from June 1974 trolleys rode them to lower each piece of steel into place.
Q 15New River water finally reaches the sea by way of which great river?
Mississippi
Mississippi: though it rises in the Blue Ridge not far from the Atlantic slope, the New drains to the Ohio, so its water reaches the sea near New Orleans instead.
Q 16The New River Gorge Bridge appears as a location in which post-apocalyptic video game?
Fallout 76
Fallout 76 is set in the state after a nuclear war, and it stirred enough curiosity that the state tourism office published a guide to the game's real locations.
Q 17Bridge Day, when the bridge closes to traffic and opens to BASE jumpers, falls on which day each year?
Third Saturday in October
Third Saturday in October: it is the one day pedestrians may walk the bridge, so through traffic is sent on a detour from before dawn.
Q 18Bridge Day at New River Gorge commemorates what?
Bridge completion
Bridge completion: the festival marks the 1977 opening, and at the first official one a handful of parachutists jumped from the deck into the gorge.
Q 19Which stunt was tried at Bridge Day in the 1980s and 1990s before organizers dropped it in favor of parachuting?
Bungee jumping
Bungee jumping was tried at a few Bridge Days, but BASE jumping proved the better show, and the Park Service now answers 'When do they bungee off the bridge?' with 'Never!'
Q 20Besides BASE jumpers, who else is allowed to descend from the New River Gorge Bridge on Bridge Day?
Rappellers
Rappellers have roped down from the underside of the bridge since 1981, and like the jumpers they get this single day a year to do it.
Q 24Unusually for an eastern U.S. river, in which general direction does the New River flow?
North
It rises in the Blue Ridge and crosses Virginia before carving its gorge through the Appalachian Plateau.
Q 25In which state does the New River begin?
North Carolina
North Carolina: it starts as springs in the Blue Ridge near Boone, close to the headwaters of rivers bound for the Atlantic, yet it heads inland instead.
Q 26The New River joins the Gauley River to form which river?
Kanawha
Kanawha: the two meet at the town of Gauley Bridge, where the New loses its name, and the combined river runs on to join the Ohio at Point Pleasant.
Q 27What do geologists call the far longer ancestral river the New River once belonged to, before glaciers buried it?
The Teays
The Teays ran west across Ohio, Indiana and Illinois until Ice Age glaciers dammed it near Chillicothe; the water found a new path along the ice edge, which became the Ohio River.
Q 28Which Virginia trader behind the 1671 Batts and Fallam expedition gave the New River its old name?
Abraham Wood
Abraham Wood reached Virginia as an indentured servant boy and rose to command Fort Henry; the river his explorers found was called Wood's River for some 80 years.
Q 29Which frontier woman famously traversed the New River Gorge in 1755 while escaping Shawnee captivity?
Mary Draper Ingles
Mary Draper Ingles, taken from Draper's Meadow in 1755, escaped from the Shawnee and walked hundreds of miles home along the Ohio and New rivers, through the gorge.
Q 30Which railway's arrival in 1873 opened the New River Gorge to the outside world?
Chesapeake and Ohio
The Chesapeake and Ohio finished its main line through the gorge in January 1873, and depots, trestles and company towns soon grew up along the tracks.