FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. — A hundred thousand or so visitors will again be making their way out to the iconic New River Gorge Bridge this Saturday for the 45th annual Bridge Day event.
Tim Naylor with the New River Gorge Convention and Visitors Bureau says it’s surreal that Bridge Day is nearly a half a century old now.
“Just to know that this event is still going strong, if not stronger than ever before, is really awesome,” Naylor told MetroNews.
Held every third Saturday in October, the largest single-day festival in West Virginia will kick-off this Saturday at 9 a.m.., giving visitors from across the state, region, country, and world pedestrian access out onto the famous steel-arch bridge until 3 p.m.
New River Gorge CVB Executive Director Becky Sullivan said within that six hour window of time, visitors get a chance to experience all things New River Gorge.
“You get to walk across the bridge, you know, you can’t walk across the bridge normally, it’s a major federal highway, so you get to walk across the bridge, you get to see the beautiful fall foliage in the gorge, be over top the New River,” Sullivan said.
Becky Sullivan
Bridge Day spectators are greeted with hundreds of vendors selling anything from homemade arts and crafts, clothing, jewelry, Appalachian wares and various kinds of festival foods along the about a mile stretch of Route 19 leading up to the bridge in Fayetteville. The CVB expects about 200 vendors for the event this year.
Making their way out onto the bridge itself, spectators will get to witness a series of BASE jumpers, tandem jumpers, and rappelers who come from all over making the incredible 876 foot drop down to the New River.
Sullivan said, however, some of the BASE jumpers don’t have to travel very far at all to do the jump they’ve been training for.
“There are a couple of local Fayette County residents who are BASE jumpers and they have a whole crew that helps them out so they can jump 876 feet into the gorge,” she said.
Sullivan said they expect to see well over 300 BASE jumpers this year.
BASE is an acronym for Building, Antenna, Span, and Earth. Sullivan said jumping off the bridge fulfills the Span portion of that.
She said BASE jumpers who take on Bridge Day must be very experienced, having a certain number of sky dives and/or BASE jumps under their belt before even attempting to make such a leap.
Sullivan said she believes Bridge Day attracts BASE jumpers from all over the world simply because of the unique challenge it poses.
“It does involve some technical skills where they are either trying to land in the river or to the right where they have a landing zone with a bullseye, so they’ve got the skills they need after experiencing so many jumps they can safely jump off of the New River Gorge Bridge and they land down there at Fayette Station,” said Sullivan.
Naylor added that this year, the U.S. Army’s Golden Knight Parachute Team will be doing a fly drop where they will jump from an airplane with a giant U.S. flag from the sky to the river. Last year, he said this was done by the Navy’s Leap Frog Parachute Team.
Naylor said they expect this to be another great year for Bridge Day.
“I imagine it’s going to be quite a big year, especially with the weather being as pretty as it’s looking to be, and with all of the leaves changing, I think maybe we’re in for another record year,” said Naylor.
The Bridge Day 5K Race starts prior to the festival at approximately 8:45 a.m.
If you aren’t planning to attend Bridge Day on Saturday but are needing to still travel through the area, the detour away from Rt. 19 is on I-79 and I-64/77. It goes into place starting at 5:30 a.m. Saturday. Signs marking the detour will be up.
Shuttle buses going to and from the Bridge Day entrance will be running throughout the event. The cost is $5 to ride. Shuttle parking will marked in distinct lots throughout the area.