The south leg of the intersection is County Route 1 (CR 1), which heads southwest along Leetown Road through its interchange with WV 9.

WV 480 heads northeast along two-lane Kearneysville Pike, which passes under CSX's Cumberland Subdivision rail line.

North of downtown, the highway bears back slightly eastward and passes through the campus of Shepherd University, including Ram Stadium.

WV 480 reaches its northern terminus at the Maryland state line on the West Virginian bank of the Potomac River.

The highway crosses the Potomac River on the James Rumsey Bridge and continues as MD 34 (Shepherdstown Pike) toward Sharpsburg.

[8][9] The new bridge, which had a 24-foot-wide (7.3 m) concrete road surface, opened July 15, 1939, and was dedicated to James Rumsey, an 18th-century pioneer of the steamboat, who demonstrated his invention on the Potomac River at Shepherdstown in 1787.