York River State Park
Virginia State Park; Contains Part Of The Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve In Virginia At Taskinas Creek · Williamsburg, Virginia
Twenty-six hundred acres of marsh, creek and hardwood ridge on the York, fifteen minutes from Williamsburg, and the clearest place in Virginia to understand what an estuary actually is. Taskinas Creek runs through the middle of the park, and because it sits where the fresh water coming down the York meets the salt tide pushing up from the Chesapeake, the water in that creek changes character with the tide and the season - which is why part of the park is a designated National Estuarine Research Reserve and why the interpretation here is unusually good. The practical version for a visitor is that you can paddle a creek in the morning that is brackish at one end and fresh at the other, watch fiddler crabs and ospreys working the same marsh, and then walk up onto a dry ridge into oak forest within a few hundred yards. The park also has a fossil beach on the York, twenty-five miles of trail shared between walkers, riders and mountain bikers, and one of the better weekend mountain bike networks in Tidewater.
9801 York River Park Road, Williamsburg, Virginia, 23188, United States
Park open daily, generally 8 AM to dusk with seasonal variation. Visitor centre keeps shorter hours and is reduced in winter. NO CAMPING - this is a day-use park. Guided estuary paddle programmes are SEASONAL, booked ahead and sell out weeks in advance. Mountain bike trails close when wet. Parking fee per vehicle, separate launch fee per boat. Trails flood after heavy rain and at very high tides.
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