Dan River

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Kerr Lake - Dan River Trip

Put In - From Raleigh, Staunton River State Park (Campsite 19) is a 2 hour drive basically up 501 from Durham to South Boston. Best to Google Map it as no bridges cross the Dan or Staunton River to let you get there faster, so you have to go into South Boston and then head east straight in. The park is the oldest park in the Virginia State Park System. It is very well maintained and has a pool, cabins, shelters, boat ramps, and lots of hiking trails. The restroom/shower house is heated. Virginia parks won the best state parks in the nation and you can see why. Again they cater to RV folks, so you will not find many tent sites. But since this was in October, it was free picking. The campsites are not on the water, so you have to drive to the boat ramps. There are two, one on the Staunton River and one on the Dan River. Water levels are again down so the end of the boat ramp is way out there.
Distance/Time - Aaron's Creek, 8.7 miles, 4 hours
Difficulty - Above Average, because of the low water areas.
Trip Directions - From the boat ramp the water level is very low, had to pick my way over to the main Dan River channel. The GPS was helpful on finding the main channel. I then headed up river until I arrived at Aaron's Creek. This is a nice paddle up to the Hwy 58 bridge. There is a primitive boat ramp here, so you could put in here and then paddle higher up on Aaron's Creek after the log jam at the bridge. It was a cloudy day, did see a few deer, even an albino deer. I ended up back at camp and found out my daughter had come home from college, it was going to be a drizzly night and I really did not have much to paddle in the morning, so I broke camp and headed home after dinner. It was a smart move as it rained all the way back and into the morning.
Hazards - Low water areas.