Does anyone else think this would be sweet for the James River? They say you shouldn’t swim in the James when it’s high and muddy because of polluted runoff from upstream (ag runoff is especially lovely), but with a couple of these floating around, people could go out and swim to their hearts content. I’m thinking Rockett’s Landing could invest in one. Or maybe Chesterfield County could put one in off of Robious Landing Park. Huguenot Flatwater seems like a good candidate for one, too.

And imagine if you owned riverfront property? Why dig a hole in your yard when you can just float a pool on the river?

Continue for more pictures…

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Well, it might be four months late, but work has begun on the half million dollar renovation of Great Shiplock Park. The James River Park parcel will soon also be a swank trailhead for the Richmond end of the Virginia Capital Trail. I took the dogs there today for a walk (and to Chapel Island across the canal) and to check out the progress. Here are some pics.                               Read More

If you’re looking for a mid-summer hiking/swimming/waterfall adventure, let me suggest a trip to the North Fork Moormans River Trail west of Charlottesville. It’s in Shenandoah National Park, but you reach it by driving through Crozet and hiking up, rather than going to Skyline Drive and hiking down. I wrote about a hike my wife and one-month-old daughter did on the trail last week for my Sunday Times-Dispatch column.

Beautiful swimming hole on the North Fork Moormans River in Shenandoah NP.

Round trip the hike was just under 4 miles. It was a workout, but I wouldn’t call it more than moderately strenuous. It’s a great hike for this time of year because there are at least three large swimming holes worthy of a cooling dip. And at the top of the hike we found a beautiful 45-foot waterfall. Well worth the 1:30 drive from Richmond.

Here’s the link to the hike on HikingUpward.com

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The black bear in western Henrico. Credit: Tom Topinka

Today’s Times-Dispatch had a report from western Henrico of a black bear sighting in a resident’s backyard. The bear is probably a young male, which go out in search of their own territory in the spring when they’re about one year old. The game department has some good information on living with black bears that they send out every spring. Click here for that.

Click “Continue Reading” to read some black bear myths they address on their website.

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View of the James River looking east between Jamestown Island and the Ghost Fleet. Credit: JRA

Last week the National Trust for Historic Preservation named a stretch of the James River near Jamestown as one of its 11 most endangered historic sites for 2013. It’s endangered because Dominion Virginia Power hopes to build a huge, high-voltage transmission line — with 16 or 17 towers, 4 of which would be 300 feet tall — 4.1 miles across the river from Surry County on the south bank to James City County on the north.

I wrote about the issue for my Friday column last week, asking the question that is the title of this blog post. A number of groups stand in opposition to the plan, mostly on the grounds that the project would mar the view in an area so central to Virginia’s — and America’s — history. I quoted Jamie Brunkow and Bill Street, both of the James River Association, both of whom brought up some really interesting points. Click here to read my column and learn more.

If you’re looking for something to do with the kids today, why not checkout RVA Streets Alive? This free event from the Sports Backers and the city of Richmond will close down a 2.5-mile loop of city streets in the downtown area from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. so residents can use the roadway for activities. There will be over 70 health-and-wellness-related vendors along the course, all offering health, wellness, and fitness activities.

The event will close the northbound lanes of the Manchester Bridge, bearing left onto Commerce Road. At Hull Street, the course turns left and crosses the 14^th Street Bridge to Canal Street, where the course continues left to Virginia Street. At Virginia Street, the course will make a left, turn up to go across the canal before turning right along the flood wall, through the parking lot and up to Byrd Street, where it will reconnect with the Manchester Bridge to complete the loop. The far left lane of Byrd Street will be open to traffic from 9^th to 10^th Streets to access the Downtown Expressway. The southbound lanes of the Manchester Bridge will be open to traffic to the Semmes Avenue exit. Semmes Avenue will be turned into a two way road under the Manchester Bridge to give people access to the inside of the course. All roads that are part of the 2.5-mile RVA Streets Alive! course will be closed to vehicular traffic from 6 a.m. until 5 p.m on Saturday.

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I have no idea why this event needs its own website, but here it is for your long-term scheduling pleasure:

Mayor Dwight C. Jones announced last week that for the third year in a row there will be a free fireworks on Richmond’s historic riverfront on July 3 as part of the city’s 4th of July celebration. The “RVA Fireworks on the  James” (www.fireworksonthejames.com) event will take place on Brown’s Island in downtown Richmond beginning at 7:30 p.m. Dominion and MeadWestvaco – Fortune 500 companies headquartered along the James River in downtown Richmond – are underwriting the costs of the event.

Credit: Phil Riggan, Richmond.com

The event will feature entertainment by local youth performers including SPARC (the School of Performing Arts in the Richmond Community), the Richmond Symphony Youth
Orchestra and the Richmond Ballet’s “Minds in Motion.” Additional entertainment and food vendors will be on Brown’s Island, and the public is invited to bring a
blanket or lawn chairs to enjoy music during the summer evening and see the fireworks beginning at approximately 9:15 p.m.

Fireworks will be  provided by Fireworks by Grucci. Known as the “Top Name in Fireworks in the  World,” Grucci is a family-owned and operated company headquartered on Long  Island, New York, with production and distribution facilities in Virginia.

The rain date for RVA Fireworks on the James is Friday, July 5, so as not to interfere with other fireworks events sponsored by the City at Dogwood Dell and at the Diamond.

Powhatan SP will occupy the land across the James River in this picture.

Powhatan State Park along the James River in northern Powhatan County will become Virginia’s 36^th Virginia State Park when it opens its gates at 10 a.m., Saturday, July 6. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at a formal ceremony.

Activities begin at 10 a.m. More than a dozen exhibitors from state and local organizations including the Powhatan Historical Society, James River Association and Virginia Museum of Radio Entertainment will provide information on a variety of outdoor, cultural and historical activities. Friends of Powhatan State Park will sell food and drinks.

At 2 p.m. the park’s riverfront area will be the site to a formal opening ceremony featuring state and local leaders and a keynote by Gov. McDonnell. Following a ribbon cutting, the group Farm Use String Band will provide entertainment until 5 p.m.

The 1,564 acre Powhatan State Park has 2.5 miles of frontage along the southern bank of the James River. The land, originally part of the Beaumont Correctional Center, was transferred from the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice to the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation for use as a state park in 2003.

Virginia’s newest state park offers three picnic shelters, a children’s playground, a canoe slide, equestrian parking, seven miles of multi-use trails and two miles of hiking trails. The park also includes a park office, maintenance area and staff residence. Facilities were completed in 2012. Local volunteers were instrumental in developing the park’s trail system. The state park’s master plan calls for additional facilities to include camping, cabins and improvements to the intersection of Routes 617 and 522.

The park’s shelters and canoe slide area are being used during the grand opening ceremonies. They will be available for regular use beginning July 7. The park is located at 4616 Powhatan State Park Road, Powhatan, Virginia 23139. For more information on all of Virginia’s State Parks go to www.virginiastateparks.gov or call toll-free 1-800-933-PARK (7275).

Randy Huwa, with the Wildlife Center of Virginia, passed this information along. It’s good to know not just for the more rural and suburban among you. Let’s be honest, deer are everywhere, and their numbers grow annually.

Each spring, the Wildlife Center of Virginia, an internationally acclaimed teaching and research hospital for wildlife located in Waynesboro, receives hundreds of telephone inquiries from across Virginia from concerned individuals who have found a white-tailed deer fawn.

In most cases, these fawns are in fine shape and need no human intervention.

In Virginia, White-tailed Deer fawns are born from April through July, with the majority of births in June.  From birth the fawns are left alone for much of the day while their mothers go off to feed.  This reduces the likelihood that the mother will attract a predator to the fawn.  Mothers generally return only at dusk and dawn to move and feed fawns. A healthy fawn found during the day most likely has not been abandoned and does not need to be “rescued”.

“Don’t be a fawn kidnapper,” Ed Clark, President of the Wildlife Center, said. “In most cases, a fawn found alone has not been abandoned and is not helpless – it’s a young animal still receiving care from its mother. Despite our well-meaning intentions, the best chance for survival of a fawn is to leave it in its mother’s care.

Thus far in 2013, the Center has admitted 50 White-tailed Deer fawns, including some that have been kidnapped.

The Wildlife Center has developed the following tips to help assess whether a fawn needs assistance.

1. I found a fawn and it is all alone.  If a fawn is uninjured and alone, it should not be removed from the area.  If you are concerned that the doe is not feeding the fawn, you may go back the next day to check if the fawn is still there.  If the fawn is gone, the mother has likely retrieved the fawn, and they have moved on.

If the fawn has not moved, you may check for dehydration by gently pinching the skin on the fawn’s back.  If the skin snaps back to its original position within one or two seconds, the fawn is fine and should be left alone.

If the skin stays in the tented position, and the fawn seems lethargic, it is possible that the mother has not returned to feed it.  An attempt should be made to see if the mother has been hit by a car or is incapacitated nearby.

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I had a blast covering the XTERRA East Championship off-road triathlon yesterday. The race actually was turned into a duathlon because the high river level made the James unsafe to swim in. Dan Hugo, who I featured in my Sunday column, won the men’s race and Lesley Patterson took home the women’s crown. Make sure you check out T-D photographer Joe Mahoney’s photo gallery at TD.com. He was right there in Reedy Creek as American pro Craig Evans took a header into the water. If you’ve ridden these trails, you probably know the pain Evans was feeling at the time. Click here for my article on yesterday’s race.

And I’d be remiss, in talking about XTERRA, if I didn’t mention the crazy fans that lined Buttermilk Trail in the now-annual ritual of cross dressing, cowbell ringing and other hijinx. This picture was taken long before the area filled up with spectators, but the guy with the Mickey Mouse head gives you a sense of what was to come.