Yesterday we posted to Facebook asking anyone if they knew anything about this face carved in a rock along a trail in the New River Gorge.
We haven’t turned out any stories yet, but we did hear about another similar carving in Charleston, West Virginia:
“There’s another one in south hills Charleston WV by the old party spot we called ‘the falls.’ We’ve always thought they were by the same person,” wrote one of our Facebook friends. They also posted some other carvings found near Gauley Bridge, West Virginia. These look notably different, but are also very cool and intriguing. According to rumor, those carvings may have been chiseled by Italian stone workers in the 1890s while cutting stone for the railroad trestle.
We still don’t know much about the carved face found on the Face Loop Trail. Here are two more clues:
This name is found a few hundred yards away from the face near a creek.
And what looks like a date is carved into the same rock as the face.
Directions to the Face Loop Trail can be found in an excerpt from a new trail guide in the Spring/Summer 2013 edition of the New River Gorge Adventure Guide, which will be out May 10. Look for it near you, or stop back here to browse a digital version.
In the meantime, if anyone knows a story or rumor about these carvings, let us know!
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