Staunton River State Park
Virginia State Park; One Of The Six Original 1936 Parks, Built By The Civilian Conservation Corps, And Virginia'S First International Dark Sky Park, Designated 2015 · Scottsburg, Virginia
Sixteen hundred acres on a peninsula where the Staunton and Dan rivers meet to form Buggs Island Lake, deep in Southside Virginia on the Carolina line, and the sixth of the six parks that opened on 15 June 1936. For most of its life it was the quiet one - a long way from anywhere, on a big flat-water lake, with CCC cabins and a pool and not much reason for anyone outside the region to drive down. Then in 2015 it became Virginia's first International Dark Sky Park, and the thing that had always been true about Southside suddenly counted: there is almost nothing out here to make light. On a clear moonless night the Milky Way is not a faint smudge but a structure, and the park runs star parties and astronomy programmes on a published calendar with telescopes set up in the field. It is still the quiet one by day - forty miles of the Tobacco Heritage rail trail nearby, a lake full of striped bass and crappie, cabins under the pines, a pool for the summer, and enough empty ground that the deer outnumber the visitors most weekdays.
1170 Staunton Trail, Scottsburg, Virginia, 24589, United States
Park open daily, generally 8 AM to dusk, with EXTENDED HOURS on scheduled astronomy nights. Swimming pool and camp store are SEASONAL, mainly June to August. Visitor centre keeps shorter hours and is reduced in winter. Cabins and camping by reservation. Parking fee per vehicle, separate pool charge, separate launch fee. Star parties run to a published calendar and are cancelled for cloud - check the moon phase too.
Staunton River State Park on Spottos · Explore more places on Spottos