Smith Mountain Lake State Park: Turtle Island and Chestnut Ridge Trails (Blog Hike #135)

Trails: Turtle Island and Chestnut Ridge Trails

Hike Location: Smith Mountain Lake State Park

Geographic Location: south of Bedford, VA (37.08169, -79.60808)

Length: 3 miles

Difficulty: 3/10 (Easy/Moderate)

Dates Hiked: March 2003, May 2014

Overview: Two moderate nature trails that provide excellent views of Smith Mountain Lake.

Park Information: http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/smith-mountain-lake.shtml#general_information

Hike Route Map: https://www.mappedometer.com/?maproute=940889
Photo Highlight:

Directions to the trailhead: From Bedford, take SR 43 south 13 miles to CR 626, the signed turn-off for Smith Mountain Lake State Park.  Turn right on CR 626.  Take CR 626 8 miles to the park entrance.  Turn right to enter the park.  Pay the nominal entrance fee, then turn left at the first intersection.  Follow this park road to a small blacktop parking area at the signed trailhead for the Turtle Island and Chestnut Ridge Trails. 

The hike: The Smith Mountain Lake area is best known for hunting, fishing, and retirement homes.  The park offers a popular deer hunt in season, and the state’s second largest body of freshwater lures fishermen and boaters from across the state.  The park also offers a small cabin area and a campground with primitive and hook-up camping available.  On your way into the park, you passed several waterfront communities, some even with their own golf course.  The warm climate of southern Virginia is becoming a popular retirement spot for middle-class people.

In all of this, the park’s hiking options seem to get lost.  There are no long trails in the park, but four short trails departing from two trailheads give hikers plenty of opportunities to view Smith Mountain Lake and its surrounding forest.  The Lake View and Tobacco Run trails combine to form a 1.2 mile loop that departs from the Visitor’s Center.  The trails offer some nice lake view and a look into an old tobacco barn, but they never lose cite of the Visitors Center or the park road.  For a little more solitude, try the two trails located on the park road just before arriving at the Visitor Center, the Turtle Island and the Chestnut Ridge trails.  These two trails could be hiked individually, but they share a common parking area and are not that long, so it makes sense to combine them into one hike.

Trailhead: Turtle Island Trail

            The Turtle Island Trail departs the parking area, heading west away from the road.  The trail immediately begins a moderate descent through hardwood forest and in 0.2 miles reaches the lake shore.  The trail curves right to parallel the lake shore, ascending to top a bluff, then descending back to lake level.  At 0.6 miles, the main trail takes a sharp right, while a spur trail to Turtle Island continues to the left.  Take the spur trail, as the small island is well worth a visit.

Bridge to Turtle Island

            0.05 miles from the trail junction, cross an arching bridge to reach Turtle Island.  Though you would not guess it by the rocks that have been carted in and placed along the island’s edge, this is a “natural” island, or at least as natural as you can get in a man-made lake.  The wooded island contains a few benches that make decent wildlife observation posts, especially for waterfowl.

Back on the main trail, the trail follows a small inlet of the lake before, at 0.9 miles, it curves left and begins a moderate climb back toward the parking area.  A short walk through dense pine forest with the park road close-by on the left returns you to the parking area and completes this trail.

Trailhead: Chestnut Ridge Trail

            The Chestnut Ridge Trail departs across the road from the parking area.  This is a figure-8 trail, and you are starting at the end of one of the lobes.  The trail descends gently and almost immediately forks.  Take the right trail, which heads rather steeply downhill, and use the left one as the return route.  The trail soon reaches the lake level, and the first of several nice lake views, this one to the right, comes into sight.  You will not find any chestnut here, long extirpated by the chestnut blight, but you will find some nice oak and a dense understory.

The trail climbs moderately to rejoin the inward loop to pass over a narrow ridge, with the lake intermittently visible to the right and the left.  When the trail splits, again take the right fork, descend to the lake level, and begin walking a narrow path only 3 feet above the water.  The sandstone bedrock can be seen in places, and a couple of windfalls make hiking more challenging.

Hiking the Chestnut Ridge Trail

            1.2 miles into the Chestnut Ridge Trail, close the farthest loop, and retrace your steps back along the isthmus connecting the two loops.  When the trail separates, choose the right option one last time, and climb gently to reach the remnants of the log structure.  There is an opening through which you can peer in, and doing so I startled a large vulture from inside the structure, which startled me equally.  Knowing that vultures only eat dead animals, I crept in a little further and got a peak at the vulture’s nest, which contained two or three large eggs.  Not wanting the mother to think I was threatening her nest, I backed away and continued hiking.

Dilapidated log structure

            From the log structure, the trail curves left and, at 1.8 miles, closes the final loop.  A short uphill hike is all that remains to return you to your car and complete the hike.