Bridge Day 2019: Crazy BASE Jumpers, Bridge Walk & More

10 years ago Shae and I moved from Virginia to California to be group home parents. We drove across the country as our job training was in Nebraska and our first stop along the way was in West Virginia.

We saw a flyer for Bridge Day at the hotel and resolved to return one fall to experience it. Well, we’re now on a 5 year, 50 state road trip, so we figured this would be the perfect opportunity to attend Bridge Day.

In case you’re not familiar with it, Bridge Day is a celebration of the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia. It’s held every year on the third Saturday of October and attracts ~100,000 people throughout the day.

Construction of the New River Gorge Bridge was completed in 1977, with Bridge Day starting three years later. That made Bridge Day 2019 the 40th anniversary of the event.

The bridge is normally only open to motor vehicles as there’s no sidewalk on the bridge. That means Bridge Day is the only day of the year where pedestrians can walk across the bridge as it’s closed to all automobiles.

Here’s more about Bridge Day 2019 and some tips in case you plan to attend in the future.

Bridge Day Parking

With 100,000 people or so attending the event and no parking lots by the bridge, the event organizers need a way to get everyone to and from the bridge.

As a result, they’ve set up special parking areas around the Fayetteville area with shuttle buses running you to the bridge and back.

We were staying at an Airbnb in Rainelle for the week which is to the east of the bridge. Our route took us to the north side of the New River Gorge Bridge, so we had two parking options. The one closest to the bridge was at the Lighthouse Worship Center on Smales Branch Road, so we headed there. Fayetteville, Beaver, Beckley and other cities are to the south of the bridge, so there were four parking areas for that side. You can find a list of all the parking areas here.

As you can see in the photo above, parking was free at our location and I believe that’s the case at all the locations. All you have to pay is $3 per person to cover the cost of the round trip journey on the bus.

One of the great things about where we parked is that the church was offering free breakfast and beverages, although donations towards the cost of the food were accepted.

Seeing as we were in West Virginia, I decided to get biscuits and sausage gravy which, to be honest, wasn’t very tasty. Still, it was free (well, apart from the donation) and there were plenty of alternative breakfast options like sausage biscuits, cinnamon rolls, Danish pastries, etc.

After the six of us had something to eat or drink – Shae’s parents and a couple of our friends were joining us for Bridge Day – we boarded the bus. When we arrived, it was just a short walk to the bridge.

Bridge Day Vendors & Activities

We got to the bridge at 10am and decided to just walk around for a while. We’d booked a Bridge Walk for 11am (more about that in a bit), so we walked about halfway along the bridge and took a look at some of the vendors. There were several food vendors, non-profits, people selling crafts, etc.

After the Bridge Walk we headed to the other side of the New River Gorge Bridge to see what else was over there. There was a climbing wall for kids (and maybe adults?)…

…we got to watch some of the BASE jumpers packing up their parachutes…

…and tried a delicious cookie sandwich.

As good as the cookie sandwich was though, it had nothing on the beautiful views we got of the New River Gorge from the bridge. It was a little overcast that day, but seriously – how stunning is this?!

BASE Jumpers

One of the main features of Bridge Day is that people get to BASE jump and rappel off the bridge. BASE jumping seemed to go on throughout the day, so there didn’t seem to be any danger of missing that experience.

There was a target on the riverbank off to the right that they tried to land on. Some were fairly successful in sticking the landing…

…and some not so much. Several speedboats were in the river that promptly picked up any BASE jumpers who landed in the water.

There were several ways they could jump off the bridge. There was a short platform that went out over the edge, along with a taller platform some of them chose to jump off.

The craziest of all the options was the catapult that some people chose to sit in that launched them over the side of the bridge, somersaulting through the air before deploying their parachute.

Nope, me either.

Bridge Day Bridge Walk

If you want to have some kind of Bridge Day experience but don’t want to be catapulted off the side of the bridge, you have a couple of options.

We paid to do a Bridge Walk which takes you on a walkway beneath the bridge. This cost us $92.22 per person which included booking fees.

The walkway is fairly narrow, but there are handrails on both sides and you’re attached to the line you can see in the photo above. It’s therefore much safer and less nerve-wracking than you might expect. Before we did the Bridge Walk, I’d been picturing us clambering over girders or something like that!

You can actually do a Bridge Walk year-round, so you’re not restricted to only doing it on Bridge Day – you can find out more about the regular tours here.

There are a few benefits to doing the Bridge Walk on Bridge Day though. First, it’s presumably much quieter as you don’t have cars and trucks passing overhead seeing as the bridge is closed.

Second, it’s in the fall and so you can see some beautiful colors.

Third, you get to see the BASE jumpers from a unique vantage point. You don’t get to see them jumping off the bridge itself seeing as they’re jumping from above you, but you still get a great view.

Here’s a video of one of the BASE jumpers we saw – you’ll also see a couple more people go flying down later in the video.

Bridge Day Zipline Tour

If you’re feeling a little more adventurous and have a slightly bigger wallet, you can go ziplining off the bridge. They only made 10 spaces available in 2019 and it cost $125 per person.

Shae and I had originally considered going ziplining, but decided $250 for the two of us was too expensive. I’m glad we decided that as the zipline wasn’t anywhere near as exciting as I thought it would be. It was much slower than I’d expected, but despite its relatively slow speed compared to other ziplines we’ve done, it seemed to be over after about 30 seconds or so.

Bridge Day Later On

After doing the Bridge Walk, we all went and got some lunch. Once we were done eating, we noticed that the event had gotten much busier over the previous hour or two.

We stopped to get some photos on the walk back over the New River Gorge Bridge, then made our way back to the shuttle bus.

On our walk back, Shae spotted someone wearing a West Virginia ACLU T-shirt with a picture of the New River Gorge Bridge with the slogan “Build Bridges, Not Walls”. We looked around the stalls for it, but couldn’t spot one for her to buy.

The WV ACLU’s office is in Charleston – a city which we visited a few days later – so we stopped by there and Shae was able to buy one from William at the ACLU.

Here’s a better look at the T-shirt itself. As you can see, Shae was very excited about being able to get one!

If you like the design, you can order it online here.

Final Thoughts

We had a lot of fun at Bridge Day. It’s incredibly well-organized, especially the transportation between the parking sites and the bridge – they’ve clearly gotten it perfected over the course of 30 years.

The fact that this is the only day of the year that you can walk on the New River Gorge Bridge makes it even more special, while we also enjoyed doing the Bridge Walk.

If you don’t have money in your budget to do the Bridge Walk though, it doesn’t matter as there’s still a lot you can enjoy at Bridge Day. You don’t need a ticket to attend the event as it’s completely free, other than the $3 for the round trip bus ride if you park at one of those lots. I’m definitely glad we got to experience the event after 10 years of waiting.