Sky Meadows State Park
Virginia State Park And Designated Dark Sky Park; Includes The 1840s Mount Bleak Farmhouse And Direct Access To The Appalachian Trail · Delaplane, Virginia
Open pasture running up the eastern flank of the Blue Ridge in the Virginia hunt country, an hour west of Washington, and the rare park that is as good at night as it is by day. By day it is meadow and hedgerow rather than forest - the trails climb through hayfields and stone walls with the Piedmont opening out behind you, past the 1840s Mount Bleak farmhouse that serves as the visitor centre, and keep climbing to meet the Appalachian Trail at the ridge, which makes this one of the easiest places in northern Virginia to walk a stretch of it and come back the same afternoon. By night it is something else: the park is a designated dark-sky site, unusually close to a major city, and it runs public astronomy evenings with volunteer telescopes set up in the lower meadow. There is primitive hike-in camping for people who want the sky without driving home, a historic orchard, and enough open ground that the wildflowers and the grassland birds do things that shaded parks cannot.
11012 Edmonds Lane, Delaplane, Virginia, 20144, United States
Park open daily, generally 8 AM to dusk, with extended hours on scheduled astronomy nights. Mount Bleak visitor centre keeps shorter hours and is reduced in winter. Parking fee applies per vehicle. Hike-in camping is by reservation and primitive. Astronomy nights run to a published calendar and are cancelled for cloud, often at short notice.
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