Congress designated the Gauley River National Recreation Area in 1988, as part of the omnibus park legislation of that year. The protected corridor begins at the base of Summersville Dam and runs 25 miles downstream to the confluence with the New River near Gauley Bridge, with a 5.5-mile section of the lower Meadow River added as a feeder. Almost none of this length is accessible by road. The single road-accessible point is at the dam itself, where outfitters launch rafts on release days. From there, the canyon closes in. Sandstone cliffs rise hundreds of feet. The forest reaches the water's edge in places where the gradient permits. Paddlers and a few hardy hikers and anglers are the only people who really know the interior of the recreation area. The Park Service manages it accordingly, with minimal development and maximum reliance on the river itself as both attraction and access route.

Summersville Dam was built for flood control. As a recreation byproduct, the Army Corps of Engineers schedules controlled releases each fall, drawing the reservoir down through the dam's outlet works. The approximately 22 release days, spread across six to seven weekends in September and October, produce flows of around 2,800 cubic feet per second - exactly the volume that makes the Upper Gauley one of the most dramatic Class V runs in the Western Hemisphere. Outfitters from across the country crowd Summersville with vehicles, boats, and clients. The economy of the region pivots on Gauley Season. Local hotels fill, restaurants run out of food by Saturday afternoons, and the river itself runs solid with rafts, kayaks, and packrafters from morning to evening. The Lower Gauley, with somewhat less ferocious rapids, runs immediately after.

The Upper Gauley between Summersville Dam and Carnifex Ferry covers about 13 miles and includes the five named Class V rapids. Insignificant earned its ironic name from raft guides who got the joke first. Pillow Rock is a long curling rapid driven against a house-sized boulder named Volkswagen. Lost Paddle is the longest of the five - a quarter-mile rapid that paddlers can lose their bearings in. Iron Ring takes its name from a piece of nineteenth-century hardware once used to winch logs through the rapid. Sweet's Falls drops eight to ten feet over a ledge, often the moment that decides who has had a good day. Below the takeout for the Upper, the Lower Gauley continues for another 12 miles of Class IV and easier Class V rapids before reaching the New River. Together they constitute the Gauley experience that defines modern American expedition whitewater.

When the Gauley releases end in mid-October, the river drops to a much lower base flow and the National Recreation Area becomes one of the quieter protected places in the country. Anglers fish for muskie and smallmouth bass through the late autumn. Hikers walk the few short trails that exist within the corridor. Climbers occasionally rappel into sections of the gorge to set new routes. The sandstone cliffs hold deep shadows that the low autumn light makes more dramatic. Wildlife - black bear, white-tailed deer, river otter - moves through more freely. Most of the year, the people of Nicholas and Fayette Counties have the canyon largely to themselves. Then in late September the next year, the gates open again and the season starts over.