Members of the hiking group on the newly renovated Brush Creek Falls Trail pause for a photo in front of the waterfall on Friday.
Photos By Tara Wyatt
Take a hike to Brush Creek Falls
By Greg Jordan West Virginia’ s mountains are the home of many surprises. Many of these wonders are first seen from a great distance, but others are heard before visitors behold them.
Brush Creek Falls State Park and the Brush Creek in Mercer County offers those wonders that are heard before being seen. The falls and the hiking trail leading to Brush Creek Falls and then to White Oak Falls near the Bluestone River were already popular, but a trail improvement project was celebrated May 16 with a ribbon cutting ceremony at its trailhead parking area.
Brush Creek goes through a narrow 400-foot canyon off Eads Mill Road where it flows down to the Bluestone River. Scenic Brush Creek Falls and White Oak Creek Falls are among the sites visitors find as they hike the trail.
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Visitors gathered at the renovated trailhead and parking lot for the ribbon cutting ceremony.
“ We’ re at our Brush Creek Falls State Park and Brush Creek Preserve, owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy, and we’ re out here today to do a public hike to get people oriented to the preserve and showcase the new trail improvements we’ ve made here,” said Mike Powell, director of land management and stewardship for The Nature Conservancy in West Virginia.
Several aspects of the natural preserve make it a special place.
“ The Nature Conservancy acquired lands here at Brush Creek in 1984 and it’ s an important place primarily because of its unique biodiversity, but also because of its natural beauty,” Powell said before the ribbon cutting.“ People have been coming here for generations even before we acquired the property here. It was a destination for people to come and look at the falls, hike, fish, swim down the old railroad grade.”
Spring wildflowers, some of them rare species, share the preserve along with birds and animals such as black bears and deer.
“ Our interest here in the Eighties was because of several rare plants, some of them are rare in West Virginia, some of which are rare globally,” Powell said.“ That was kind of our original conservation target, and as we rezoned it over the years we’ ve discovered a lot of other rich biodiversity, the unique birds that are found here during breeding season and many unique plants that we weren’ t aware of when we first acquired it.”
The trail has been widened and improved, plus the parking area has been improved and now has a kiosk with in-