PARKS GUIDE 2019
Did you know the Richmond area boasts more than 225 parks within an hour of downtown? The next time you head outdoors, check out one of these lesser-known — and less crowded — recreational areas.
Photo courtesy Virginia Department of Conservation & Recreation
Powhatan State Park
4616 Powhatan State Park Road, Powhatan
Best for: Hiking, paddling, camping
Description: For most Richmonders, Powhatan State Park isn’t much farther away than Pocahontas State Park in Chesterfield County, yet it doesn’t see a tenth of the visitors of its popular neighbor. What gives?
With 1,565 acres, Powhatan boasts a large canoe/kayak launch, a paddle-in primitive campground, 2.5 miles of James River frontage, more than 12 miles of multiuse trails and 9 miles of bridle trails for horses, and 29 developed campsites with three yurts. The park also offers regular float programs. On one recent guided trip you could float from Powhatan to Maidens Landing and get shuttled back for $9 per person.
And did I mention yurts? They’re a cross between a tent and a cabin. Each yurt has a deck, a picnic table and fire pit and is fully furnished, though they do not have electricity or running water. Imagine a fall day of paddling on the James, hiking its wooded banks and then retiring to your yurt for a night of s’mores under the stars. That experience is available in relative solitude, just 45 minutes away.
Photo by Hadley Chittum
Lewis G. Larus Park
8732 Hayden Hill Lane, Richmond
Best for: Hiking, biking, escaping the city without going far
Description: To fully appreciate how underutilized Larus Park is, pick a Saturday in the summer or early fall to visit. Start on Riverside Drive at Pony Pasture Park and drive west. It’ll take a while to get through the Pony Pasture area, with the parking lot overrun with cars and runners, bikers and tubers crowding the road. Once you do, keep going on Riverside Drive until you cross under the Huguenot Bridge. Take a right on Southampton Road, and you’ll probably see cars lining both sides of the street at the Huguenot Flatwater area of the James River Park. But keep going: Left again onto Riverside (which turns into Hickory Road), right on Cherokee Road, then left on Beechmont Road. Follow that a few hundred yards to the Larus Park entrance.
There’s only one trail into the park from this section north of Chippenham Parkway, but it won’t be long before the feeling of seclusion hits. You’ll cross under the parkway via a tunnel that doubles as a creek bed. The cars above will barely register. On the other side is a world of massive tulip poplars, creeks cutting surprisingly steep ravines and trails that pass granite boulders begging to be scaled. There’s no real system to the trails: Follow one, and you might arrive at Sabot at Stony Point School. Follow another, and you’ll find yourself behind Sneed’s Nursery. But chances are, no matter which path you follow, you won’t see many people in the 100-acre park — even on a Saturday when the nearby James River Park is packed.
Photo by Jay Paul
Williams Island
In the James River, across and upstream from Pony Pasture
Best for: Solitude, urban exploration, paddling
Description: Did you know there’s an island paradise in the James River that often goes days without anyone setting foot on it? That’s Williams Island — 95 acres owned by the Department of Public Utilities but operated as part of the James River Park System. When you’re standing on the south bank of the James looking upstream of Pony Pasture, Williams Island looks so large, it could easily be mistaken for part of the North Bank. You can only reach it by boat.
Put your kayak in at Huguenot Flatwater and paddle a half-mile downstream to the island. Stay to the south bank (river right) and park your boat at the giant “Portage” sign before the Z Dam. (Warning: Do not attempt to run the Z Dam!) This is as good a place as any to start exploring.
Williams Island has nothing but social trails (created by human and animal foot traffic) and few of those. Walk along the south bank of the island to its downstream tip. Here you’ll see where the river to the north of the island rejoins that to the south. Rapids abound, as well as several small islands and numerous places to fish, wade and relax.
To explore the rest of the island, you’ll need to bushwhack, but isn’t that what hidden gems are all about? With the river on both sides, it’s not as if you can get lost — though you might just lose yourself in the serene forest, beholding the wildlife that call the island home and the sound of the James River in the distance.
Photo by Jessica Ronky Haddad
Lee Memorial Park
1614 Defense Road, Petersburg
Best for: History and nature appreciation, hiking, fishing
Description: History is deposited like sediment from the flooding of a mighty river at Lee Memorial Park in Petersburg. Natural and human history pile up, layer upon layer. The 330-acre park has ball fields and tennis courts, picnic tables and pavilions for events. Those get plenty of use, but it’s the wooded section of the park ringing Wilcox Lake — and all that’s taken place there — that makes this place worth the drive.
You want ancient history? The park straddles the 314-million-year-old Petersburg granite formation that disgorges pink rocks. Or maybe you want to search for fossils, some between 6.5 and 9 million years old, that have been found below the dam creating Wilcox Lake? During the Civil War, the main fortification built around Petersburg was called the Dimmock Line. Its remnants cleave the park in two. Go walk it for yourself.
For lovers of wildflowers, Lee Memorial Park has an especially interesting history. In 1935, Petersburg set aside a section of the park for unemployed women to build a bird and wildlife sanctuary. For six years, white women supervised black women in clearing ravines, building trails and planting thousands of wildflowers, shrubs and trees. A decade ago, the Wilcox Watershed Conservancy found that 75 percent of the wildflowers planted in the 1930s remain today. While Central Virginia has no shortage of historic places, Lee Memorial Park has more than its share, yet remains virtually unknown outside of Petersburg.
