Mid-Ohio Valley

The Mid-Ohio Valley covers the seven counties — Calhoun, Jackson, Pleasants, Ritchie, Roane, Wirt, Wood — that wrap the middle Ohio River and the rolling Allegheny foothills inland. The terrain runs from the broad river bottoms at the Ohio shore eastward into narrow ridge-and-valley country drained by the Little Kanawha River. Parkersburg anchors the region in Wood County, sitting at the confluence of the Little Kanawha and the Ohio; Blennerhassett Island Historical State Park is reached by paddlewheeler from the downtown waterfront. Ravenswood, Ripley, and Sandyville run the Jackson County corridor along I-77 between Charleston and Parkersburg. Spencer holds Roane County; Grantsville sits on the Little Kanawha in Calhoun; St. Marys runs the Pleasants County stretch of the Ohio. North Bend State Park sits on a deep oxbow of the North Fork in Ritchie. Trips here are usually built around Parkersburg and Blennerhassett — the historic island, the river museum, and the downtown grid — with side trips to North Bend, Cedar Lakes near Ripley, and the Mountwood Park area. The festivals run heavy in late summer and early autumn.