North Bend State Park Travel Guide

Every cabin at the park has its own grill and bareque area. Also within the camping grounds you can find grills and benches to throw a barbe.

Here dad fires up the grill, and gets to work on cooking the hot dogs and hamburgers.

North Bend State Park offers 11 hiking trails throughout the park. Some are just simple 1/2 mile trails, perfect for anyone just looking to take a nice stroll through nature. Others are a couple miles, and leave you feeling like a long nap once you finish.

My Favorite of the trails is "Over Hanging Rock" trail. A simple trail that takes you around and through huge bolders along the mountain side. You can often see rock climbers scaling the bolders along the hike.

Another popular trail is the Hibbs Cemetery trail. Half way into the hike is an old cemetery, but you must look good for it, for its covered with grass and dirt.

For more on the trails, ask for a trail guide at the main lodge of the park.

The R.C. Marshall Hardware Store is one of the highlights of Cairo. It was built shorty after 1900 and has been serving people in the area ever since.

It is known for trying to avoid plastic and electrical appliances, and has lots of unique little things. It truely is a landmark in the area.

*** This picture was taken within the store, and is of me holding a real bear rug. This may be normal for some of you, but besides from movies and cartoons, this was the first time i ever really seen one.

Cairo, West Virginia is located south/west of North Bend State Park, about 10 minutes from it's main gates. Its also located about 40 minutes east of Parkersburg just off of Highway 50.

Cairo is a neat little town to stop thru while in the area. Some of it's highlights are Scoops, the best ice cream in Cairo (the only ice cream in Cairo). The General Store, a unique store with very strange merchandise. Cairo Bank, One of the oldest buildings in Cairo.

Cairo fun Facts
It's population as of 2003 was 267. It was named after the capitol of Egypt, and stands along North Fork Hughes River. In the 2000 and 2004 presidentail race, 3/4 of the town voted Republican.

The Scoops is located in the small town of Cairo West Virginia, about 10 minutes outside of North Bend State Park.

For it's location in such a small town, we were shocked at how busy this little ice cream bar got. But once we tasted the ice cream we understood.

Scoops is a family run business, and on a busy day, the whole family is there. The prices are great, and there is a bunch of things to choose from on the menu. There's giant sundeas, ice cream floats, ice cream soda, and every flavor of ice cream u can imagine.

The Scoop is a must while in the area, and i promise will be your favorite spot if staying at North Bend State Park. It was for our family.

North Bend State Park was a treat when it came to deer spotting. Every time you drive into the park, you are certain to see atleast 2 or 3 deer along the road side.

The deer have grown some what tame to humans so are not so quick to run from passing cars or people hiking the surrounding woods. This made it so easy to get great pictures.

It is also not uncommon to see other wildlife that calls the park their home. Just within the week i was there i saw racoons, squirls, chipmunks, fox's, and possums, along with dozens of deer.

Half of the family decided that we actually felt like exerting some energy on our vacation, so we took off to the park lake to do some morning canoeing.

The park lake is actually man made, and was a result of the dam that was constructed to regulate the flow of the river that snakes it's way through the park.

Canoe prices started at $15 for the first 2 hours, and accommodated 3 people. 2 man Kayaks started at $17 dollars for the first 2 hours. One man Kayaks and paddle boats are also available for rent. For more on prices and times, visit the following link North Bend State PArk

*** Ths picture is of little cousin Ashley about to take grandma out on the lake. In the back right of the picture you can see myself and cousin Kira. At this moment we had just realized that if we were careless, we would find ourselfs swimming in the lake. I told Kira to stay centered and balanced, and as you can see in the picture, she is as straight as a statue...