Blackwater Falls
First stop on the trek is right across the river from Davis, in Blackwater Falls State Park. In precise geological terms, Davis is just outside Canaan Valley. The Blackwater River emerges from the valley interior, seeping from the bogs and swamps that cover the valley floor. Gathering itself together, it meanders north where eons ago it cut a gap through the raised lip of the bowl, where it passes in front of Davis before tumbling over a set of spectacular falls. From there it carves a canyon down through the mountains on its way to the Ohio River. Canaan Valley sits on the Allegheny Ridge, an eastern Continental Divide deep in the Appalachians. Water on the eastern side of the ridge flows toward the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic, water on the west side flows north and west, into the Mississippi and down to the Gulf of Mexico.
The route taken. Link to map.
