James River State Park
Virginia State Park On The Upper James In Buckingham County; Three Miles Of Undeveloped River Frontage With Canoe In Primitive Camping · Gladstone, Virginia
Fifteen hundred acres of rolling farmland, meadow and woodland at Gladstone in Buckingham County, with three miles of undeveloped James River frontage and almost nobody on it. This is the upper James, seventy miles above Richmond and a completely different river from the one that crashes through the fall line in the city - here it is wide, shallow, warm in summer and slow enough that the standard way to spend a day is to put a canoe in at one access and take it out at another several hours downstream. The park was assembled in the 1990s out of former farmland, which is why it does not look like the wooded parks elsewhere in this pass: there are open fields and long grass meadows running down to the treeline, which makes it unusually good for grassland birds and for seeing deer at dusk. There are twenty-odd miles of trail, primitive riverside camping you canoe to, cabins, a fishing pond and three river access points, and the whole thing is quiet in a way that a park this good has no business being.
104 Green Hill Drive, Gladstone, Virginia, 24553, United States
Park open daily, generally 8 AM to dusk with seasonal variation. Visitor centre keeps shorter hours and is reduced in winter. Canoe and kayak rental and shuttles are SEASONAL, mainly May to September. Camping, canoe-in riverside sites and cabins are by reservation. Parking fee per vehicle plus a separate launch fee per boat. LAUNCHES CLOSE IN HIGH WATER after heavy rain.
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