Fall Tourism Season Begins in Pocahontas County

We recently caught up with Chelsea Faulknier, the Director of the Pocahontas County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, and asked her about the upcoming autumn season in the county.

“The summer season has flown by,” said Faulknier. “We certainly can feel the cool temps in the air as fall is encroaching upon us. We know that fall festivities are coming up. Some of our most popular, long-standing events happen in summer and fall. You can check out our pocahontascountywv.com (website.) Our events calendar there has an updated calendar of events. Of course we’ve got fall foliage with these cold temps. (We) are starting to see some color in higher elevations – a little bit of change there. The West Virginia Department of Tourism has a really great interactive fall foliage map that you can check out on their website – westvirginiatourism.com.”

“We also have our 2026 Adventure Guide that we are getting ready to reprint so , anybody that is planning festivities for 2026, or any of our business and hospitality partners that have any changes for any of their listings that might be in the Adventure Guide, we still have time to collect those corrections, so if they want to just call the office here or email myself or Linda Adams can email ladams@pocahontascounty.com (with) any changes or updates which you have which you would like to include in the 2026 Adventure Guide, which we’ll  have by January of next year.”

“We are encouraging folks to take our Mountain Culture Hospitality Training that is put on by the Pocahontas County CVB. There is no better time for Mountain Culture Hospitality Training, so if you are interested in signing up, you can call the Pocahontas County CVB, or you can email Chelsea Faulknier at cfaulknier@pocahontascountywv.com, and we can get you scheduled to do hospitality training”

“And, we are also excited to announce that a lot of our Monongahela National Forest partners received secure rural school funding, so over $400,000 in funding for different projects across the Monongahela National Forest. Many of those projects happen right here in Pocahontas County, so we are really thankful and happy to see all of these new projects that are going to be coming into fruition in the next year.”

“We have recently submitted our Pocahontas County CVB annual Report that is required through West Virginia State Code. We submit that to all of our reporting agencies, such as the Pocahontas County Commission; the Town of Marlinton; the WV Association of CVBs as well as the WV Legislature. This year, when compiling all that information for that annual report, we noticed thar 2024-2025 was our record-breaking year for Occupancy Tax in Pocahontas County. We saw right at 3.6 million dollars in Occupancy Tax for the entire county, so that’s a wonderful feat. That money goes towards not only allowing the CVB to help promote our destination, but to the county for different initiatives and services. It is great to see such a great year with Occupancy Tax collection from July of 2024 through June of 2025.”

“The Snowshoe Highlands Area Recreation Collaborative (SHARC) has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Pocahontas County Commission and the Pocahontas County Office of Emergency Management and 911. This is a Rapid Extraction Module Support Team. And So, this team that is working with the County Commission and the Pocahontas County Office of Emergency Management to deploy. They will provide technical rescue evacuation services in remote environments here in the county. They will also serve as deployable assets for 4 to 6 assignments anywhere annually. So, this not only supports our local, regional, and state, but beyond, and enhances our outdoor recreation safety and our workforce resilience. Charles Evens, our SHARC Trail Maintenance Crew Coordinator and Back Country Recreation Coordinator recently was deployed in Northern California to assist with a wildfire out there. This was, I believe, the first deployment that Charles has went on through this Rapid Extraction Module Support Team. We are really excited to see that agreement in place and the SHARC Team advancing with their purpose and responsibilities within that MOU.”

“As always, if the Pocahontas County CVB can be of support for any resources or information, please give us a call or check out our website. We are always happy to assist, and looking forward to a wonderful fall season.”

Thank you, Chealsea.

So, to see the dates and times of all the fall events, visit the CVB’s website, pocahontascountywv.com