Blackwater Falls Overlook

The Blackwater Falls Overlook trail descends a series of wooden stairs and boardwalks to the main viewing platform directly above West Virginia's most celebrated waterfall, where the Blackwater River plunges 57 feet over a Pottsville sandstone ledge in a dramatic amber-colored curtain that has served as the park's and the state's defining natural image for over a century. The falls' striking color—ranging from amber to nearly black depending on light conditions and seasonal flow—derives from tannic acid produced by the decomposition of red spruce needles and sphagnum moss in the headwater bogs of the Canaan Valley plateau above. At peak flow in spring snowmelt or after heavy rains, the falls roar with impressive volume, throwing spray far enough to mist the viewing platform continuously. In drought summers, the flow becomes a more delicate series of threads descending the sandstone face, but the color intensifies as the reduced volume concentrates the tannic acids. The boardwalk descends through dense rhododendron thickets that frame the approach with twisted trunks and in June blaze with pink-white blossoms above the falls' mist. Multiple viewing levels allow photographs from different angles and distances. The lower viewing platforms provide excellent views of the gorge walls above the falls, where the layered Pottsville sandstone exposes 300 million years of Pennsylvanian-age depositional history. Winter transforms the falls dramatically when spray ice builds into towering formations around the plunge pool.