BECKLEY, W.Va. — A West Virginia city near the nation’s newest national park is developing a recreational trail system that could exceed 40 miles—part of an effort to transform it from a transportation center into an outdoor destination.
About 14 miles of city-managed trail are now open to the public, and new trails are under construction, according to Mitch Lehman, outdoor economic development coordinator for Beckley, West Virginia.
Along the way, planners are also rebuilding an older trail through its municipal park and working on a longer through-trail to connect the city with the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve.
“The Beckley trail system could expand to as much as 40 miles—especially with the development of the through-trail that would connect it to the national park,” Lehman said, though he cautioned that the corridor connection has yet to be determined.
The development represents a significant change for Beckley, which grew through the 20th century as a regional center for commerce, health care, and transportation but is now positioning itself as one of the state’s better-known outdoor recreation communities.
Lehman facilitates a monthly collaborative working group established to help carry out the Beckley Outdoors Economic Action Plan, which is guiding much of the city’s outdoor-recreation development.
New trails are taking shape
At the Piney Creek Preserve, along the Piney Creek Gorge on the east flank of the city, more than two miles of trail are open, Lehman said, though plans call for the Stanaford Grove trail system there to grow to about five miles, while a proposed connection between two trailheads could add approximately four more miles.
Lehman said the current emphasis is increasingly on trails designed to attract mountain bikers, though the influence is broadly economic.
“In the last year, we’ve really focused on developing mountain-bike-optimized trail systems that just provide a really exciting experience for folks who want to come and mountain bike in the area,” he said.
“Creating destination-quality trails that people are willing to travel for is a big focus right now as part of the Beckley Outdoors initiative.”
The planning process identified mountain biking as the city’s greatest opportunity for economic growth through trail development, though shared-use trails for hikers, runners, and other users remain part of the larger system, he said.
One of the newest additions is “Union Grind,” a trail being completed at Stanaford Grove. Its name draws on the region’s coal heritage, and it includes a steel-framed drop that he believes is the first of its kind in southern West Virginia. Nearby Stanaford was once the site of a massacre over unionization during the West Virginia Coal Wars.
Signature features such as the drop are intended to give individual trails an identity and distinguish Beckley’s developing system from the substantial mountain-biking infrastructure already available elsewhere in the New River Gorge region.
“Figuring out how to set ourselves apart and make it so that people want to travel and come visit these trail systems is something I’m really after,” Lehman said.
Another major addition came through the city’s recent lease of trails at the soccer complex at Grey Flats, a level woodland along the gorge. Lehman said those trails add approximately 12 miles to Beckley’s publicly accessible trail inventory.
Older trails are being rebuilt
New trail development is happening alongside improvements to recreational infrastructure that has served Beckley for decades.
At New River Park, Tracy Toler, of Nitro-based Adventure Trail Systems, is refurbishing the park’s longtime loop trail. The project includes a reroute near the park campground that will create a continuous soft-surface loop, eliminating the need for users to walk along the campground road before rejoining the trail.
Lehman said the change should improve the experience, particularly for families with young children.
“I think it’s really important as we’re developing our new assets to take care of the ones that have been serving our community for decades prior to any of this new development,” he said.
New River Park also connects with the Beckley Rail Trail, which follows a former railroad corridor across the city and links the communities of Mabscott, Sprague, and Skelton. A restored railroad trestle connects the trail with the park.
A separate project is bringing bike-skills features to a portion of the rail trail near downtown, adding another kind of cycling experience to the emerging network.
Trail builder says Beckley stands out
Toler, who is also president of the West Virginia Mountain Biking Association, said Beckley’s commitment to outdoor recreation stands out to him because his work takes him to trail projects across West Virginia.
“Beckley Area Trails—they’re just crushing it,” he said. “They’re just doing so much stuff.” But Toler said the more significant difference is the commitment he sees from city government.
“The city seemingly has been incredibly supportive of the outdoor economy and taking it seriously,” he said.
He pointed specifically to its decision to dedicate personnel like Lehman and legendary trail builder Gary Morefield to development, something he said impressed him as someone working in the industry statewide.
“I wish more cities would show that type of initiative—to realize it’s important enough to have someone dedicated to that,” he said.
He said Beckley also faces a challenge that established outdoor communities such as Fayetteville largely did not: it must change what outsiders associate with the city.
“Everybody thinks of Fayetteville as a totally different place than what you would think of when you say Beckley,” Toler said.
Fayetteville, he said, is already closely identified with outdoor recreation and New River Gorge, while Beckley remains more strongly associated with coal mining and interstate transportation.
From his perspective, he says, that distinction is changing. “I just feel like Beckley has fully embraced the outdoor economy and is pushing health and outdoor recreation and has totally come up way above what most cities in West Virginia have,” Toler said.
He said Beckley has to deliberately create an outdoor identity, unlike Fayetteville, which acquired its identity largely through its proximity to rock climbing and whitewater paddling areas in the northern New River Gorge.
That effort, Toler said, is one reason Beckley has impressed him. “Beckley is crushing it,” he said.
Beckley looks toward New River Gorge
The expanding trail system is part of a broader effort to change how Beckley fits into the outdoor economy surrounding the national park.
Lehman said the city is preparing to roll out a “Base Camp Beckley” brand strategy developed alongside the Beckley Outdoors Economic Action Plan. The campaign is intended to position Beckley as a central hub for the national park while promoting outdoor recreation available within the city itself.
“Having a brand that reflects our offerings, I think, is going to be really crucial to continuing to tell Beckley’s story of transformation from, you know, a natural-resource extraction economy to, you know, an outdoor recreation and tourism-based economy,” Lehman said.
Beckley’s size could give it a different role in the regional tourism economy than smaller communities that have already established themselves as outdoor destinations.
Asked what Beckley could offer that Fayetteville and other outdoor towns cannot, Lehman pointed to the city’s capacity to accommodate visitors.
“I think that we just have a greater capacity to welcome visitors to the area,” he said.
He said developing more recreation around Beckley could also help disperse visitation across the New River Gorge region, reducing pressure on heavily visited locations.
“What we can really provide is a disbursement of visitation to the national park, so that the places that we know and love don’t get overrun,” Lehman said.
“And people can come and get a little slice of the national park right here in Beckley.”
The 40-mile figure remains a potential, not a completed or fully committed trail system. The route of the proposed connection toward the national park has not been determined, and individual projects remain at different stages of planning and construction.
But with about 14 miles already publicly accessible and additional work underway, Beckley’s effort to establish itself as an outdoor destination is no longer confined to a planning document.
For a city that has spent generations serving travelers headed somewhere else, that may be the more consequential change.