On the same road trip that brought me to James River State Park, VA, I was able to spend some time at Douthat State Park, VA (pronounced dow-that; I had to ask). Once again, a great place to hike and camp, which I did.

This is the road to the campground. It gave me a brief pause, I’m not used to driving over bridges with no sides.

The White Oak campsites are set up to handle RV’s, but I was able to find a place for myself.

My campsite was just above the stream, which was probably not far from being a river.

And it came with flowers.

Not as many as I had at James River, but the higher elevation (~1400′ MSL) would mean spring would be just a bit later here.

Again, hiking is what I came to do, so shortly after sunrise, bright-eyed and straight-feathered, I set off. There are lots of trails to pick from, many easily accessible from the campground. I headed west.

Most of the trails were like this, single-track and (seemingly) all uphill.

But the climbing was rewarded with some supertastical views (that’s Lake Douthat there):

Climbing means that there are going to be places where you could fall off the trail. If you did, it might be a while before you came to a stop.

They say the land tells a story. This was on a downhill section of trail right where it took a sharp right turn. I think the story here is that a mountain biker almost went down into the gully.

Getting close to the top, where the Salt Stump trail runs into the Middle Mountain trail. The trail topped out around 3100′ MSL.

Now who put these rocks all the way up here?? (as if I didn’t know, Mom Earth)

Wow-mazing views from up here, making the climb well worth it.

At the Tuscarora Overlook there’s a small cabin. I’m told this is the first structure that was built in the park and was used as a fire lookout.

With a view like this, it’d be worth it even if you didn’t need a lookout. You can almost see Lake Douthat in the middle just past that first ridge. The campground would be just a bit to the right, behind that ridge.

There were a number of opportunities to wade or hop across streams. Here were three in a row.

Near the camp store & grill is where the water runs out of Lake Douthat.

In addition to those facilities, you can practice your land canoeing.

You don’t see many of these any more:

Oh yeah, did I mention there’s a grill? I decided I didn’t need to cook (much) that evening.

While I prefer so-called “primitive” camp sites, the campground I stayed at wasn’t that dense and the humans were generally quiet, and I had no issues there. In fact, there wasn’t even any litter I could find.

The only nit I can pick is, again, navigational. At an intersection along the Heron Run trail, the marker pointed in an ambiguous direction. I knew the trail should be following the lake shore which resolved the ambiguity. It was disappointing though that I didn’t see any Herons Running the trail. In reality, this lake, with steep banks, didn’t look like good habitat for the Herons I’m familiar with, who like to wade around in shallow areas.

Another great time at a Virginia State Park. Next time I’m up that way I’ll have to hike around the eastern part of the park.

Strava activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/14245994753