New River Gorge has some of the country's best whitewater rafting, mainly from the Cunard put-in to the Fayette Station take-out,[3] and is also one of the most popular climbing areas on the East Coast.

As stated in the legislation, the park was established as a unit of the national park system "for the purpose of conserving and interpreting outstanding natural, scenic, and historic values and objects in and around the New River Gorge, and preserving as a free-flowing stream an important segment of the New River in West Virginia for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations."

The New River Gorge National Park and Preserve Designation Act[4][5] was incorporated into the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, and signed into law by President Donald Trump on December 27, 2020, changing the designation to New River Gorge National Park and Preserve.

The waters provide a surprising variety and density of riverine hydrologic features and processes unparalleled in the Eastern United States, including pools, backwaters, glides, runs, shoals, riffles, torrents, cascades, chutes, rapids and waterfalls.

New River Gorge offers shelter to at least 63 species of mammals including the endangered Virginia big-eared and Indiana bats.

Diverse populations of birds such as wood warblers, vireos, and thrushes spend part of their lives in the tropics, but depend upon the unfragmented forests of the New River Gorge for breeding.

The National Park Service and West Virginia Department of Natural Resources have initiated a multiyear program to restore peregrine falcons to New River Gorge.

There are historically significant abandoned places, some in ruins and some stabilized and rehabilitated, where people worked and lived during the late 18th and 19th centuries, supplying the coal from the New River Coalfield, and lumber that helped fuel American industry.

Also contributing to the area's cultural history are surviving examples of subsistence farms, former community sites, homesteads, and other places in the park where the ancestors of families long associated with the New River lived and worked.

The majority of the routes in the gorge are for advanced climbers in 5.10-5.12 range of the Yosemite decimal system with about an equal number of traditional and sport climbs.

[16] The New River Gorge Bridge can be viewed throughout the park, including at the Canyon Rim Visitor Center and the Long Point trail.