VA State Parks #2- A day in Pocahontas State Park

Just 30-minutes drive away from Richmond, located in chesterfield county is Pocahontas State Park, the largest Virginia state park. Established in year 1946,this park spreads out in 7,925 acres of land has amazing trail network to offer, and many other activities from camping to fishing. So, yeah it has wide range of outdoor adventure and fee is 5$ only for parking. Awesome right! They have trails for everyone hiker, biker, jogger, runner, dog lovers so  basically that counts everyone in.
We visited for a day hike and chose Beaver lake trail, which is one of the easiest and also popular one. As it is just 2.5-mile loop around the lake. For a novice hiker it is a perfect place to explore.

We started our hike clockwise around the lake, so that we go through the hilly part in our first half of the hike and flat course for later. We followed the fence from where we get the glimpse of beaver lake.

Small wooden bench by the lake, under the woods one place to click beautiful view of lake. I can only imagine how wonderful it will look in sunny summer day.

Moving forward to Beaver dam, here the flow of water stream make it look like a waterfall definitely one of the highlights in beaver lake trail. From here hilly terrain starts which later turns into flatter course.

We saw small bridges over the creek, water flowing beneath which I guess meet in to the lake. Here after it was like walking into the woods. CCC museum is 1.19 miles away so half the trail is done.

Boardwalk here felt like winter dry I mean it was nice and well maintained but surrounding was all fallen leaves and trees which off course is natural because its winter.

Near to here we saw an observation platform for the closer look to the lake, another platform is just before the end of trail.

We did trail clockwise but direction is not major concern, its totally depends on you. On our return, we went to CCC Museum which is dedicated to the Depression era worker who helped in building the state park.

One more interesting fact we learnt here was that this CCC museum was constructed by CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps). I really love the vision the leader at that time had for their country may be in future you may see our write-up about CCC.

This is our picture story of Pocahontas state park. We really loved it and hope to come again and explore more of this beautiful park.

VA State Parks #1 - Westmore Land State Park- First Day Hike 2017

New year, new adventures! We started off 1st day of 2017 in Westmore Land State Park. On the occasion of new year all of America’s state parks have ‘first day hike’ event that encourages everyone to explore their surroundings to connect with nature in it's parks. This year it was the sixth annual national event in which all 37 Virginia state parks participated and, were open for all with zero admission fee and a guided hike program. I think this idea of getting people out of their couches on new year is incredible, as it brings them closer to nature.It sure is a healthy way to start a year.

We decided for Westmore land state park which is 90 mins drive from Richmond. The park's trails were first built in 1930s by the Civilian conservation corps (CCC).It is located on the Potomac river's northern neck and offers many trails to hike which are well maintained and marked out nicely. In case someone hikes alone it’s easy to find way in and out. They also provide cabin and camping for overnight but we just visited for our special first day hike. 

We signed in for the park's popular 'Beach Trail' to the Fossil Beach. It is a short distance away from the visitor Center and opens up to beautiful fossil beach by the Potomac river which is located below horsehead cliffs.

We tried to hunt down the fossilised shark tooths for which this beach is really famous. It was a guided hike program so our guide also provided us the wire basket to filter the sand and zip locks to save our find to take home.

After spending good time searching for tooths, we went to another trail, it just few meters before the fossil beach a right turn for 'turkey neck trail' & 'big meadow trail' starts here with a nice boardwalk leading to the observation deck where an amazing view of fossil beach and the meadow surrounding is waiting for your camera to get clicked.

We went to the end of the board walk to see the trail and swamp but made our comeback after the swamp.

we had an amazing day and also collected few shells and weird looking stone which we took home with us. After a week, we got another gift  a 'First day hike bumper sticker' from the Virginia state park by mail.

If I recap all what we got then 'free entry to the park, guided hike program, first day hike sticker and most of all we really enjoyed our time with nature', I would say not a bad way to start a new year!right?!