The Elk River Trail is a “rail- bank,” hard-packed gravel trail 73 miles in length running through central West Virginia (from Gassaway, Braxton County, through Clay County to Clendenin in Kanawha County), plus an intersecting 18-mile rails-with-trail in Clay County. The trails are virtually flat, with a one-half percent (0.5%) grade. The main trail runs along the Elk River on the original Coal & Coke Railroad (later the B&O Railroad) while the rails-with-trail section runs along Buffalo Creek on the old Buffalo Creek & Gauley Railroad track. Made possible by the efforts of its prior owner, The Elk River Railroad, Inc., the main trail is now owned or leased and operated by the State Parks Section of the WV Division of Natural Resources (DNR) and supported by the Elk River Trail Foundation. The rails-with-trail spur is owned by the WV Division of Multimodal Transportation and the location of the popular Rail Explorers rail biking adventure. Approximately 10 miles of the trail remain to be completed.

The Elk River Trail is primarily a “rail- bank” hard-packed gravel trail 73 miles in length running through central West Virginia. The Elk River Water Trail is a 102-mile long water trail running from the Sutton Dam at Sutton, Braxton County, WV, through Clay County, to its confluence with the Kanawha River in Charleston, Kanawha County, West Virginia. The water trail provides people with access to the river for fishing, boating, kayaking, tubing, and other outdoor water activities. Elk River Trail Foundation is the “designated entity” for the Elk River Water Trail. The Center for Biodiversity recognizes the Elk River as one of the most bio-diverse rivers in the country, supporting over 100 species of fish, including the endangered diamond darter, and 30 types of mussels. Fishing for bass and muskellunge is a popular sporting activity on the river. The Elk River basin provides high-quality drinking water for Charleston and nearby communities. Kayaking and tubing on the water trail is quite popular. The elevation of the Elk at its source in Pocahontas County is approximately 4,000 feet. At Charleston the river elevation is 565 feet, making a total drop of 3,435 feet. Its average fall over the 177-mile course is 19 feet per mile, characterized by numerous long, deep pools and long, shallow shoals. According to historian Roy Bird Cook in his preface to Tale of the Elk, the river’s name derives from the Shawnee designation as ‘‘river of plenty fat elk.’’

The northern terminus of the trail is in the trail town of Gassaway. The trail is currently completed south, downriver along Elk River, 53 miles to a point below the Hartland Trailhead in Clay County. The 15-mile section from Big Sycamore Creek to Queen Shoals is still under construction, but another 4.5 mile section is completed from Queen Shoals into and through the Town of Clendenin, with a mile of that being paved with asphalt. A short section to Brown Street has not been completed. A Congressional earmark was approved in 2026 to extend the trail from Gassaway to Sutton.