There’s a hidden world beyond Giants training camp: Bunkers, caves and hope

August 1, 2026 · Yahoo Sports

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — Vinny Busher looked out at the football field in front of him, a postcard setting backdropped by rolling green mountains and a cloudless blue sky.

“It’s gorgeous,” he said.

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More than eight hours earlier, at 4:30 a.m., Busher left his home in Wappingers Falls, New York, and began the drive to Giants training camp at The Greenbrier resort. Busher, 37, pulled on his Eli Manning jersey and brought his girlfriend, Analisa Aste, along for the ride, ready to bask in the optimism of coach John Harbaugh’s first camp.

“I’m here for the vibes,” Aste said.

Unlike Busher, she’s not a Giants fan worn down by so much misery over the past 14 years. Still, here she was Thursday, watching the Giants’ second camp practice on a perfect, low-humidity West Virginia afternoon. They’d stay the night and drive back in the morning. Weekend commitments awaited.

But they just had to squeeze this trip in.

So did Alex Gentile, a 65-year-old lifelong Giants fan who grew up in Brooklyn and made the 13-hour solo drive from his retirement home in Florida. Because maybe, just maybe, this camp would mark the start of a magical rebirth under Harbaugh.

Yet even in his Lawrence Taylor jersey, Gentile couldn’t help but feel a tad uncertain about Harbaugh as the Giants’ sure-thing savior.

“I don’t want to be skeptical,” Gentile said. “I want this to be a Super Bowl team.”

With the Giants’ East Rutherford training facility under construction — and an NFL-ready complex in place at The Greenbrier — they and their suddenly hopeful fans trekked to this remote and delightfully curious corner of America this week. The Giants, who have been here since July 28, will call it home until Aug. 8.

The Giants and their fans all sought renewal, as so many others have for centuries in this place — from U.S. presidents bathing in the luxury resort’s mineral springs to hippie homesteaders in the 1970s whose live-and-let-live worldview left an enduring imprint.

The Greenbrier will be home to many Giants fans through Aug. 8.Darryl Slater

Back in New Jersey, the initial reaction to this first-ever faraway Giants camp was blunt: They’re going to the middle of nowhere.

But everywhere is somewhere. So what’s out here, nestled 2,000 feet up in the Allegheny Mountains, along the eastern border of West Virginia?

There are plenty of quirky, contrasting vibes on either side of the Greenbrier River, separated by nine miles of winding, undulating two-lane road. And so much of what you learn here feels unexpected — especially the part about bear-tracking dogs falling into a cave.

On one side of the river, there’s the sprawling, buttoned-up Greenbrier, with its stately white exterior and uniquely gaudy interior — plus a Cold War-era bunker built to house Congress during a nuclear war. It sits just outside the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it downtown stretch of White Sulphur Springs, a map dot where locals hang banners for President Donald Trump.

Just up that two-lane road is the nearest larger town — Lewisburg, with a population of 3,900 (about 1,700 more people than White Sulphur Springs).

A liberal, LGBTQ-friendly enclave with a pesky sinkhole problem and a coffee shop that hosts Friday tarot card readings, Lewisburg maintains a complex relationship with The Greenbrier — begrudging reliance on an exclusive resort that feels cold and distant.

“A lot of Lewisburg wouldn’t exist without The Greenbrier,” said Dani Sabbag, 36, a New Jersey native who co-owns The Public House bar on the town’s historic, well-manicured main drag. “It’s a necessary evil.”

***

At first sight, The Greenbrier’s massive main building looks equal parts regal and creepy — the White House meets “The Shining.”

Inside, pastel-painted walls, floral-patterned curtains, furniture and carpets overwhelm you. It feels like your grandmother’s living room on steroids.

The Greenbrier lobby, before reaching rooms that could cost customers $400 to $600 a night.Darryl Slater

Still, this resort — where rooms go for $400 to $600 a night — has dozens of amenities, from golf to a casino to those famous mineral springs. Bunker tours cost $52 for adults, $24 for kids.

The Greenbrier also embraces prominent sports teams. The Saints, Texans and Browns previously held training camp there. The Patriots, 49ers, Cardinals and Raiders did shorter practice stints.

The resort hosts early-season college basketball games in one of its massive ballrooms that are lined with giant old-fashioned pink curtains. Leading up to this year’s World Cup, Iraq’s national team made The Greenbrier its base camp for training.

One of West Virginia’s Republican senators, former Gov. Jim Justice, owns the resort. He comes from coal money — lots of it. Lewisburg knows Justice well. Since 2003, he has coached girls’ basketball at the town’s high school, Greenbrier East.

“If he walked in here right now, I’d tell him to get the f--- out!” Taylor Feury piped up as she sipped a can of hard seltzer.

Behind the bar at The Pub — as everyone calls it — Sabbag chuckled and nodded. She and Feury, 32, own this place together.

The mirrored wall behind Sabbag displayed a small rainbow pride flag, tucked into a wood-carved outline of West Virginia’s distinct shape.

A world away in downtown White Sulphur Springs, a framed oversized restaurant order slip hangs on a coffee shop’s bathroom wall, with an illustrated message printed across it in big letters: “Jesus Paid It All.”

Back at The Pub, Sabbag poured another lager. A straight single mom of three, she wore a hat that read: “Daddy Needs A Beer.” She and Feury, who is gay, both graduated from Greenbrier East.

The Pub owners, Taylor Feury (left) and Dani Sabbag (right), who grew up in New Jersey.Darryl Slater

Feury played for Justice — and hated it. She considers him a bully who uses the resort for personal enrichment instead of addressing this state’s real problems.

“I’ve buried over 20 people I know from opioids,” Feury said.

Feury and Sabbag both acknowledge The Greenbrier’s positive impact on Lewisburg — widespread job creation and a boost to the town’s high-quality restaurant scene, which benefits from the resort’s chefs who remain in the area.

Still, they wonder why Justice needs to charge Greenbrier guests $44 for a round-trip shuttle to downtown Lewisburg, which surely discourages off-resort spending. (Justice’s net worth was estimated at $664 million last year, making him the richest U.S. senator.)

“The Greenbrier isn’t West Virginia,” Sabbag said.

She moved from New Jersey’s Sussex County during high school. Everyone immediately started calling her “Jersey” — and still does, even though she never wants to move back.

Sabbag used to work in The Greenbrier’s restaurants and spent enough time in that pastel-and-floral lobby to justifiably call it “an acid trip.”

Now, she makes her life’s work in Lewisburg, which she lovingly calls “weird” and “liberal religious,” since this is still West Virginia.

Across Washington Street from The Pub, Lewisburg’s vibe emerges in earnest at the Stardust Cafe. There, you can dine on a delicious $44 duck breast entree, and the tattooed waitress will bid you farewell in her Southern accent: “I hope you have a blessed night.”

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***

Around the corner, in front of a modest white Baptist church, the world falls away.

That’s because, as Harbaugh tries to shift the Giants’ fortunes, the ground always moves in this part of America. Lewisburg and its surroundings sit atop a labyrinthine system of limestone caves, with unstable karst terrain above it, just below street level.

“You’ve basically got holes in the dirt,” said Joe Thomas, 47.

He grew up in Lewisburg, spent 10 years as an air-conditioning and refrigeration mechanic at The Greenbrier, and now leads the town’s fire department. As a kid, he and his friends screwed around by crawling down a small cave hole on the edge of town. There’s a Walmart out there now.

Thomas pointed toward the Baptist church at a 4-foot-long grate in the pavement. It’s an old, 60-foot-deep sinkhole with a drain culvert at the bottom that leads to caves. Last year, as often happens in Lewisburg, another sinkhole — a 20-footer this time — opened at that same intersection. The town filled that one and paved it over.

A 4-foot sinkhole grate precedes a Baptist church in Lewisburg, West Virginia.Darryl Slater

A couple of miles up the road from the Walmart, Lost World Caverns — discovered in 1942 — offers guided tours. But the region is pockmarked with untamed cave holes on farmland, so Thomas’ guys sometimes find themselves rescuing overzealous tourists who get lost or stuck. A few years ago, a poor guy was down there for two days.

Then there’s the “bear dog,” as Thomas called it. He’ll forgive you for looking confused as he patiently explains: Black bears abound in West Virginia. During autumn, hunters can shoot them for population control. They train hounds to track them. Some hunters eat the meat.

“I’ve tried it once or twice, and I didn’t care for it,” said Mike Campbell, 44, one of Thomas’ fire department captains.

In other seasons, hunters still work their hounds by having them chase bears up trees. So just after Christmas five years back, 30 miles south of Lewisburg, two dogs chased a bear onto rural land owned by — who else? — Justice.

The dogs fell into a cave. So did the bear. That area’s fire chief rappelled down and spotted the bear — with the dogs 15 feet below it. The bear ran deeper into the cave, allowing for the rescue of the dogs, who both survived despite falling 100 feet to the cave floor. The story quickly spread around these parts. Thomas shrugs about it now.

“Chasing a bear,” he said matter-of-factly.

***

Living in this corner of America requires commitment — a fitting reality as a backdrop for Harbaugh’s demanding and possibly transformative first camp.

The Giants fans who showed up Thursday — when the bleachers surrounding the field were about half full — mirrored that dedication.

Busher said his eight-hour drive from Wappingers Falls “really wasn’t that bad,” even as his return haul loomed Friday.

Chris Shanwenda — a 37-year-old Paterson native who lives in North Carolina and works as a truck driver — zipped three hours up here with his kids, 12-year-old Isaiah and 18-year-old Jazmine. They planned to drive back after practice, optimism in hand.

Chris Shanwenda, a Paterson native, and his kids, Isaiah (left) and Jazmine (right), enjoy Giants training camp.Darryl Slater

“The last 15 years have been tough watching,” Shanwenda said. “But there are high hopes this year.”

On the other side of the practice field, Gentile — the retired lifelong Giants fan from Brooklyn — said he expects “definitely a winning record” from Harbaugh’s first team.

Hoping to get a good initial look, Gentile planned to stick around for a couple more practices. Then he wants to explore a bit of West Virginia, eager to check out all the somewheres out here in the middle of nowhere.

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