Lake Anna State Park, Virginia
Time: Overnight camping, short trails
Length: Lots of options
Gear: The usual camping gear
Difficulty: 1 paws
Scenery: 4 paws
Pack: Camping is more fun with a friend!
This past weekend, our OBH pack explored Lake Anna which is one of Virginia’s fabulous state parks. The name is probably a dead give-away, but the campsite is located at one end of Lake Anna which is a large and busy lake, especially in the summer.
We arrived Friday evening and set up in time for some delicious guacamole and chips – yum – and even had time to take the dogs for a short walk as the sun was disappearing. The park has 11 trails covering 15 miles so obviously they are short but can be combined for longer treks. From the park information we learned there are a few more difficult options but we found them to be easy and straightforward.
The campsites are on pea-sized river rock that does create a nice, clean area for setting up and sleeping. HOWEVER, you might want to bring dog boots for your pup! The stones seem to irritate their feet – not at the pad, but up in their feet. One minute they were fine but suddenly Saturday night both Karma and Cannon were walking as if on eggshells. OUCH!
Our weather was 100-degree-hot! And zero breeze! For this we were grateful for the many water opportunities! On Saturday we grabbed our camp chairs and took the Railroad Ford Trail to its tip where we found a little section of water where the dogs could be off-leash (technically a no-no and by the way the hosts at the campground are pretty serious about this!) and play in the water. The boys were in heaven! We hung out for a couple hours – long enough for Karma to learn to really swim and for Cannon to get in deep enough to take a few strokes.
The campground itself had some really nice amenities – bathrooms, showers, place for washing dishes – but sadly by Saturday night the toilets stopped working. Good thing we were in the woods – ha! We also were fortunate enough to have a site meant for campers with full electricity and running water – great for doing dishes. That night we had an amazing dinner of Arctic Char, grilled veggies and marshmallows (of course!) and slept under a full moon.
On Sunday morning, the dogs still were walking on eggshells, the bathrooms hadn’t been magically fixed overnight and it was 90 degrees by 9a. We decided it was too hot to do anything, especially since we had no way to get the dogs to the lake without using their feet! So we packed it up and went home early, having had a wonderful weekend.
