Summersville Lake

Summersville Lake was created in the 1960s when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a large earthen dam across the Gauley River, mainly to control the floods that had long plagued the valley towns downstream. The dam backed the river up into a deep reservoir among the steep, forested hills, and today the lake stretches for miles with a long, cliff-lined shoreline.

The project came at a cost to the valley it flooded. The small community of Gad lay in the path of the rising water and had to be abandoned, its residents relocated before the reservoir filled, a story echoed at many mountain dams of the era. The dam still does its flood-control job today, and the lake it formed has become one of the most popular recreation spots in the state.

What sets Summersville apart from most Appalachian lakes is the clarity of its water. Fed by clean mountain streams and held in a rocky basin, the reservoir stays unusually clear, and on a calm summer day divers can see remarkable distances below the surface. That clarity has made it one of the premier freshwater scuba diving destinations in the eastern United States, with divers exploring rock formations, drop-offs, and the quiet underwater world along the cliffs.

The same clean water makes for excellent paddling, swimming, and boating. Kayakers and canoeists thread the coves and slip beneath the cliff walls, powerboats and anglers work the open water, and swimmers gather at the beaches and shoreline areas. A small lighthouse near the shore has become a local landmark and a favorite photo stop.

The sandstone cliffs that ring Summersville Lake are a climbing destination in their own right, offering routes on solid rock with the lake shimmering below. Climbers and cliff jumpers gather at the popular walls, and the combination of climbing above and boating below gives the lake an adventurous, outdoors reputation to match the nearby gorge.

Each fall the lake performs its most dramatic act. Water managers draw the reservoir down and release big flows through the dam, sending a controlled torrent down the lower Gauley River. The result is Gauley season, weeks of world-class whitewater that draw rafters and kayakers from around the globe to one of the steepest, most technical big-water runs in North America.

This rugged plateau country was ancestral homeland and shared hunting ground of the Shawnee, the Cherokee, the Moneton, and other peoples who traveled and hunted the mountains and river valleys long before the reservoir existed. None of those nations is federally recognized in West Virginia today, and their descendant nations continue in other states, but the deep woods and streams they knew still surround the lake.

The forested shoreline and clear water support abundant life. Bass, walleye, catfish, and trout draw anglers to the lake, while ospreys and bald eagles hunt over the open water and white-tailed deer, wild turkey, and black bear move through the surrounding hills. In fall the hardwood ridges around the lake blaze with color, mirrored on the still water.

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