Maury River at Stuartsburg Road - June 2009

Access to the Maury River is available on the Chessie walking trail off Stuartsburg Road, just east of Lexington, Virginia. Parking is available for a handful of vehicles in this location, and access to the river itself is provided by a short dirt path. I used my kayak wheels to push through the overgrown vegetation along the path today to explore the flatwater available along this stretch of the river.

A set of long rapids are present immediately downstream of the river access point, but there is a short area of flatwater right at the access, and I thought I'd see if I could paddle and/or walk through the next set of rapids upstream to access what looks like a longer stretch of flatwater. As it turned out, it wasn't possible to power through the rapids, nor was there an easy to way to walk around them. So instead, I paddled around and enjoyed the rock garden just below the rapids.

This was another pool in the river that was simply too short to do much flatwater paddling, so besides a couple of 'laps' between the rapids, I spent much of my time on the water poking around the rock garden and enjoying the afternoon.

For trippers putting in or coming out of the Maury River, this is a fine access point, and it also works for local paddlers looking for 30 minutes of paddling and poking around. However, I wouldn't recommend driving too far for the flatwater available along this stretch of the river.

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