My house in James City County, Virginia, sits at about 30 feet above sea level. Nearby Jamestown Island site at about 10 feet above sea level. The land between my house and Jamestown Island includes Greensprings Swamp, which surrounds the blue beaver ponds on the map above. My house sits almost in the middle of this map, on the road you can see below the label for Jamestown Hundred. When we moved to Williamsburg from northern Virginia 25 years ago, we had to get accustomed to the idea that swamps are beautiful.
This map shows a trail around the ponds – the Greensprings Interpretive Trail. It has a lot going on. The surface is graded and improved and there are no hills, so walking is easy. A couple of bridges cross the beaver ponds and take you around the muddy areas. It’s a nice walk.
The main loop is a little over two miles around; an extension adds another mile to the walk if you’re so inclined. There’s always lots of wildlife to see — birds, fish, frogs, and deer. It’s never very crowded — I never see more than a dozen people when I walk this trail. No bikes are allowed (officially — people often bike it anyway). People walk this trial with their dogs and walk with their families.
Interpretive signs dot this trail — 30 signs in all. Some of the signs are kind of strange — like the one that marks a “Fallen Tree.” Others are historical: Marker 15 marks “Mainland Farm,” identified as the oldest continually cultivated farm in America. It was the farm on “the Mainland” — not on the island — for Jamestown in 1609, only two years after the settlement’s founding.
When we bought our house in 2004, we had to pay a “lot premium” because of its location — it backs up to the park (which is a protected wetland), so it will never be developed. When we first moved in, the trail was not improved; walking the entire trail required skirting muddy patches by detouring through the woods and so forth. A few years later, a local Boy Scout group adopted the trail in honor of one of their members who had died tragically, and the trail was graded and covered with crushed stone to make it easier to walk and run on. The trail and park are part of the James City County park system, so the whole area is maintained by the county.
During the worst period of the COVID pandemic, when everything was closed down, the trail was a saving grace. We walked it regularly. When school resumed, the cross-country team began running on the trail again.
Like many other people, I became way too sedentary during the pandemic years, even though the trail was always there. I have begun to walk it more regularly. It’s good for both my mental and physical health.
Nice spots. Swamps are not my favorite place because snakes are not my favorite critter. However, I prefer your swamp to the one we were on in Georgia. The Georgia swamp was busy with critters and night herons, which make a mess and a lot of noise. When the water begins creeping into your yard, come to my place. We're at a mammoth 73 ft above sea level.