Hiking Long Point: A Doorway to a New World

If you’re looking for something unusual, exotic even, in a West Virginia landscape, Long Point is just the ticket. Long Point is a rugged promontory of sandstone that juts like a fortress into Summersville Lake, a 2800-acre impoundment in Nicholas County, West Virginia, just off US Route 19. During weekends in September and October, water is released from the dam into the Gauley River to provide plenty of white water and rapids for rafters and kayakers. The lake level is eventually lowered by 75 feet to its winter pool elevation of 1,575. The landscape below normal lake level is stunning, and hiking and exploring it will leave you awed. 

The Long Point Trail

The Long Point trailhead (GPS: Lat. 38.23387, Long. -80.86593) is located at an archery range near the Summersville Airport. Before you leave your vehicle, make sure you’ve packed a camera because you’re going to be rewarded with a visual feast! It’s an easy 1.8 mile hike out to Long Point as the trail gently undulates through the forest. It follows an old road for about a half a mile before branching off along a broad ridge that progressively narrows as you approach Long Point. The Corps of Engineers has placed signposts at ½ mile intervals, so you can easily measure your progress. 

Long Point

At the trail’s end a sign is posted saying: “Warning, Trail Ends Here.” It doesn’t. But it does mean that you have to be careful, for beyond the sign you’ll be near sheer rock cliffs and open fissures in the rocks. Don’t be put off by this. Just watch your step for the next 50 to 100 feet, and you’ll walk out onto the tip of Long Point. 

At the Point

Now it’s time to get your camera out. The promontory at Long Point once sat above a sweeping, horseshoe bend in the Gauley River. Now it stands as a castle surrounded by Summersville Lake. At the end of the point, you’re treated to a nearly 360-degree panorama of sky, rock, and water. 

Long Point

At this point, you will have been well rewarded for your efforts, but quite frankly the best is ahead. When you’ve soaked in all the scenery at Long Point, return to the sign marking the end of the trail. From the sign post pace off 150 steps along the trail away from the point. This should put you close to two small pine trees growing about a foot apart. Turn to the left and follow a “bush-wacked” trail–a path worn down by occasional hikers. It leads to a depression near the edge of the cliff. 

Descend in the Cleft

Now here’s where nature has been kind. The cliffs at Long Point are shear and steep, over 100 feet high, and normally only rock climbers could scale down to the base of them. But to the left of the depression you’ll find the head of a narrow cleft in the massive rock walls of the cliffs. This crevice is like an enclosed stairway which runs from the top of the cliff to the bottom. It’s easy to negotiate and not a bit dangerous. In fact, the rock walls surround you as you descend. 

Emerge in a New World

You emerge from the crevice at the base of the cliffs. If you’re visiting Long Point during low water levels between November and April, then hold your breath because you’re about to enter a landscape unlike any other in West Virginia. As you emerge from the crevice, perhaps the first thing you’ll notice are bold, beautiful, snow-white boulders of all shapes and sizes. The rocks are rough, angular, and piled chaotically. It’s like a scene from another planet or a lunar landscape. The rocks are brilliant white because they’re below the water level during the summer, and being submerged for so much of the year, they aren’t stained by the oxidation and weathering of iron-bearing minerals. So the rocks are in their most pristine state.

You’ll also notice tree stumps poking up between the boulders. The stumps were left when the Corps cleared the slopes of the lake in the early 1960's. Since all the soil has been winnowed away by the waters of the lake, the roots of the trees have been laid bare and resemble the arms of an octopus. The textures of the tree stumps are fascinating, too. The bark is gone, but the wood beneath is not rotten. Rather it’s dried, cracked, and desiccated and either chocolate brown or silver gray in color. In some ways, the environment below the water level at the lake resembles something out of the desert southwest. The rocks are bare and craggy, and the vegetation is sparse. If you didn’t know better, you might think you were in Arizona or New Mexico. It is truly a new world.

Hike Around Long Point

Even though the terrain is rough and rocky, with care you can hike through it. If you walk to the left (east), you’ll catch your first glimpse of Long Point towering above you. Long Point is naturally photogenic. This dazzling promontory invites photography. As you make your way around the promontory, it changes character, presenting new facets, and seems to pose for pictures–all striking and inspiring. 

Long Point

After rounding the bend below Long Point, double back and explore the ground just below the point. You’ll find arches, crevices, and a giant chamber enclosed by steep walls of stone. Once you’ve taken in all the scenery you can, make your way back to the cleft. You can’t miss it. It’s behind a huge pyramid of stone–a block of sandstone that’s fallen from the cliffs and now lies on its side.

Long Point

A Temple of Stone 

John Muir fell in love with Cathedral Peak in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California and wrote of it: “From every point of view it shows marked individuality. It is a majestic temple of one stone, hewn from the living rock.” Perhaps you’ll feel the same about Long Point. I do.