Holly River State Park

The park's signature draw is its waterfalls, tucked into steep, fern-choked hollows and reached by hiking trails that climb along tumbling streams. Falls like the well-loved Tenskwatawa and the tall, slender cascades deeper in the woods reward hikers willing to walk back into the coves, where the water spills over mossy ledges into cool pools.

These hollows are classic central-Appalachian terrain, narrow valleys where creeks have cut down through layered rock, shaded by hemlock and hardwood and lined with rhododendron and fern. The trails can be steep and rocky, and the streams run highest in spring, when the falls are at their loudest and most dramatic.

Like many of West Virginia's older state parks, Holly River bears the mark of the 1930s and the public-works programs of the Great Depression. Crews built roads, trails, and buildings using local stone and timber, in a rustic architectural style meant to harmonize with the forest rather than stand apart from it.

That heritage survives in the park's cabins and gathering buildings, sturdy structures of log and stone that give the place a timeless, handmade feel. Staying in one of these cabins, deep in the woods with a fire and the sound of the creek, is one of the classic West Virginia state-park experiences.

The park is laced with hiking trails ranging from short waterfall walks to longer, rugged climbs onto the surrounding ridges and viewpoints. Because the park is so large and forested, wildlife is abundant: black bear, white-tailed deer, wild turkey, and a rich array of woodland birds and salamanders make their home in the hollows and along the streams.

Each season transforms the forest. Spring brings wildflowers, rushing falls, and fresh green. Summer is cool and shaded in the deep coves even when the lowlands swelter. Fall lights the hardwoods in brilliant color across the ridges. Winter is quiet and often snowy, and the park slows to a hush, though its cabins make a cozy cold-weather retreat.

Holly River lies in the Mountain Lakes region of central West Virginia, a rugged, sparsely settled country of reservoirs, forests, and small towns. The park's remoteness has protected its wildness, and it remains one of the least crowded of the state's large parks, a place valued precisely for its isolation.

This forested interior was part of the ancestral homeland and shared hunting ground of the Shawnee, the Lenape, and other peoples, whose descendant nations continue today beyond West Virginia. The name Tenskwatawa carried by one of the park's falls, drawn from a historic Shawnee figure, is a reminder of that older presence in these mountains long before they became a park.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.