What’s Bridge Day? The short answer is it’s the largest festival in West Virginia.
But it’s more than that, really. Just saying “the largest festival…” leaves out the whole community feel of it. The tradition. The adrenaline.
Maybe if there were some more names for it, it would help describe everything that goes down…
- “Y’all Are Crazy” Day- The big draw, of course, is BASE jumping off the New River Gorge Bridge. If you don’t know, BASE is parachuting from a fixed object- in this case, a bridge. A spectacle.
- “I Can’t Eat Any More… Well, Okay” Day If there’s one thing you’ll find everywhere at Bridge Day, it’s food. From the Pancake Breakfast in the morning to the Chili Cookoff that night, (and all day long, too) there’s plenty of grub.
- “This Place Is Awesome” Day When you see the big crowd, and the jumpers, and the rafters and kayakers below, and the fall colors, all from this engineering marvel of a bridge, this is exactly what you’ll think. Promise.
- “I Do Need Some Art” Day We’re lucky to have some of the most talented artisans in the state come and set up shop. Almost anywhere you go on Bridge day, there’s great art for browsing and for sale.
- “We Need To Stay Another Day” Day There is no way to do everything you’d like to do in the New River Gorge in a day. Rock climbing, mountain biking, horseback riding, fishing, ATVs, paintball, rafting, kayaking, and on and on. Sorry about that.
- “I Should Get A Motorcycle” Day It probably helps that Weest Virginia has more CRPC (Curvy Roads Per Capita) than any other state. Whatever it is, Bridge Day draws tons of bikes.
- “I’ve Got To Show My Friends This” Day This year -the 30th anniversary- Bridge Day is full connected, online, and mobile. Text bd30 to 77007 to find out everything, and tag the stuff you share with #bridgeday or #bd30.
- “I Could Get Used To This” Day The New River Gorge is the world’s greatest backyard, basically. People move to this part of the Mountain State to turn life into serious play.
- “Fat Guy With A Funnel Cake” Day Self-explanitory.
- “We’re Definitely Doing This Again Next Year” Day If we renamed the festival after the phrase most often overhead at Bridge Day, this would be it.
It’s a lot of things. More than anything, it’s fun. And who are we to try to define fun, anyway? We’ll just stick with Bridge Day.