What comes to mind when you think of West Virginia?

48 comments

1. That I’m going up there in March or April.. but that’s about it. I don’t really think about west Virginia, and I live in Virginia lol.

2. John Denver and one of my favorite places to camp and visit. White water rafting.

3. Country roads, take me home

4. The New River Gorge Bridge! As well as beautiful green mountains.

5. Blue ridge mountains! It’s a state I’d love to live in

6. Mountains. There’s is not a flat piece of land in that entire goddamn state.

7. The small town that a friend used to live in, for a while when we were both single I’d go out and visit her for a weekend, its nice, usually a bit cooler than where I live even in the heart of summer. Nice to get away for a few days every couple months.

8. My friend from college who grew up there and was ostracized by her community and family after she came out.

9. Tayvon Austin

10. Mothman

11. Almost heaven

    Blue ridge mountains

    Shenandoah River

    All of those lyrics I can’t be bothered to type despite having them burned into my brain

12. Due to a buddy of mine from there: people that can dress up and down and also skin a deer.

    Also really pretty mountains that I’d like to revisit.

13. John carter

14. My friend Jennifer.

15. Mountains, I’m a Brit and worked at a summer camp in WV. It’s such a beautiful state, it’s very rural I must say.

16. One of the most beautiful vistas I have ever seen was in WV. I was doing some work inspecting trees along some utilities and part of the project had us in the middle of nowhere WV. The only way we could get a cell signal was a few spots on ridge tops. I remember standing on one with a perfect 360 degree view of rolling Appalachia all around. A crisp, clean, steady gust of wind tearing through. Absolutely gorgeous.

    That’s the first thing I think of when I hear West Virginia. I’ll note that I live around a 10 minute drive from the border and some of my favorite local running/biking trails have me looking over the river at WV. I look at some beautiful parts of the state all the time. That remote mountain top is still the first place my mind goes.

17. Mountains, and Mountains, and some Mountains. Very pretty, but there are some Mountains.

18. Banjos, white water rafting, hiking and coal

19. Opioids, mountains, and loyalty to the union

20. Not an American, but country roads.

21. Mountains and poor people

22. Worlds largest teapot

23. Home. Even though I haven’t lived there in almost 22 years.

24. “That John Denver was really full of shit, man”.

25. Lots of valleys

26. Mountain Mama… take me home

27. John Denver

28. Drove through on the way to Cleveland many years ago. It’s a stunningly beautiful state.

29. Like others, the John Denver song, and then mountains.

30. Natural beauty, normal people abandoned by greed

31. 3 of my 4 grandparents are from there (like about everyone my age from where I grew up), so I guess I’m 3/4 West Virginian. Been there countless times.

32. Coal wars, coal, forests which will someday become coal.

33. Coal Miners.

34. Folk music. Opioids. Beautiful rolling mountains. Exploitation — West Virginia has shocking poverty, bad public health, environmental damage, and poor infrastructural development and planning.

35. Marshall University

36. Life is old there. Older than the trees.

37. Coal mining and fracking.

    A documentary, The Wild Wonderful Whites of West Virginia. People criticized it for being poverty porn, and I think that criticism was fair. But I grew up around people like that. There’s a lot of wisdom and love there that I think the documentary captured well.

    Also the Bourdain episode about West Virginia. It looks really beautiful. I’d like to visit.

38. The mountains, ridge and holler geography, and some beautiful rivers for rafting.

    Inevitably people will say hillbillies but that’s just rude.

39. I almost died in West Virginia. I was doing a plant collection for a botanical survey in and around the new river gorge. I went to ID a flower that was on rocky outcrop and as I walked out I slipped on some moss. My feet went out from under me and I slid backwards. I grabbed hold of a small tree trunk and managed to hold on. When I looked back it was about 5-600 feet straight down. My butt puckered and I pulled myself up and got out of there.

40. Beautiful place

41. Mountains and coal mining.

42. MBMBAM and the McElroy brothers

43. Mountains and meth

44. Some of the most beautiful natural landscapes in these United States and some of poorest Appalachian towns you’ll ever see.

    Aside from that- The Silver Bridge Collapse.

45. My stepdad was from there and he called it “West Verginny”

46. It is a very wild & woolly place.

    The place where I was born.

    Hard to talk to people that have been raised there. It has to be the water.

    Coal and the lack of industry.

47. I think of the Monongahela National Forest. It is such a beautiful area. Our little family has vacationed down by Elkins a few times. I need to plan a trip back and soon.

    I also think of The Cheat River as we had an almost perfect family vacation on that one summer. I love West Virginia.

48. Appalachia, poverty, mountains, natural beauty, folk art and folk music, coal