Foster Falls on the New River Trail

After checking out the Shot tower, we headed down the New River trail. We had no idea where we were going, we just planned to hike a few miles along the river, and then hike back.



It was a beautiful hike, but we were a little bummed we couldn't get closer to the new river. The trail was up above the river, and there was no real access to it. The views were gorgeous and we enjoyed seeing all the fall colors.

After hiking for awhile, we finally came to place where we could walk down to the water. It was a really cool area called Foster falls village. This is the Headquarters for the New River Trail State Park. was a kayak rental, a campground, picnic area and even a farm with horses. They have horse back riding rentals, and guided tours.



Sage and Kenan throwing rocks and sticks in the river.

We spent a lot of time here, just playing in the river. There were huge rocks that we could jump across and sit on. The views were unbelievable.

Sequoia looking for critters. We saw a pretty big fish, just hanging out.

This is why we don't have many family pictures. :)

Sage almost took a nap in this tree.

i took way too many pictures of the scenery. It was so hard to chose which to post. We eventually wandered up to see the farm, and let the kids pet the horses. We wandered through the historic village which includes the remains of a depot, hotel, sawmill/gristmill, and iron furnace.There was also a pretty cool amphitheater here, and i'm curious as to what they use it for.

This is the iron furnace built in 1880-81. At its peak, the furnace employed 70 to 80 and produced 12 tons of pig iron each day. The raw iron was brought to the furnace from Wytheville aboard narrow-gauge railroads called "dinky" trains and the finished product went to markets in Baltimore, St. Louis and Cincinnati.

The hike back to the car was fun for everyone, except maybe Kenan. :)
We have really had a lot of fun exploring these areas along the New River Trail and Blue Ridge Parkway. Foster Falls was really an amazing find, and we can't wait to come back again.