Seven Bends State Park Will Open Soon!

Our newest state park will open to the public later this month. Construction on Phase One is complete and facilities will open after they pass inspection. The official Ribbon Cutting will be later, perhaps in early spring. 

Seven Bends State Park has two vehicle entrances. (You can also enter by canoe or by hiking.)  The first photo shows the view at the Hollingsworth Road entrance. This is past Muse Vineyards near Woodstock. 

North Fork of the Shenandoah from the low-water bridge.

When the river reaches flood stage, you will not be able to reach the park except possibly by hiking. There is a swinging bridge that people use to reach Muse Vineyards when the low-water bridge is flooded.

Entrance to Stairway down to the Bridge.

The Swinging Bridge Seen from Hollingsworth Road.

Now let's go to the Lupton Road entrance. We drive down a narrow road and cross the river on another low bridge. Enter the park and we see a curved fence which once enclosed a pony ring when the property was Camp Lupton, a summer camp used by Massanutten Military Academy. The old camp buildings were demolished except for a small pony barn.

Sharing with Fences Around the World.

A small picnic shelter has been completed. There are restrooms next to it but they are waiting inspection.

Corn is still being farmed here for now.

The main recreational activities in the first phase of the park will be hiking, fishing, and canoeing. The narrow roads into the park limit vehicles to a fairly small size so there are no plans for RV camping.

I took these photos on October 1st and the weather was unseasonably hot so I did not walk around very much.

Some people were fishing in the river.


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The park is named for seven of the turns in the Shenandoah River, probably for the seven bends that you can see from Woodstock Tower. There are many more bends in the river, both in this North Fork and also in the South Fork on the other side of the Massanutten Range. After the two forks join near Front Royal, there are even more bends before it reaches the Potomac.