Close to Richmond . . . in a way

 A few yards away, a freshly beaten path between a creek and a stand of gnawed saplings cross our trail - a beaver has been hard at work. A little farther on, a handful of blue feathers litter the way, possible evidence of a blue jay's lost battle for survival.

These are just a few of the dramas that unfold every day in and around Bear Creek Lake State Park in Cumberland. One of the state park system's smaller parks, Bear Creek Lake is a modest 326 acres in a county that ranger Andy Parisi tells me has no stoplights.

"Not many people in Richmond know about us," Kneipp says.

The deeper I get into this trek with Kneipp, the more I wondered why. The spectacles Bear Creek Lake offers may not jump out at you as they do at Grayson Highlands or False Cape, but they can be just as bracing and often more satisfying for having to search them out.

The park is just off Route 60, less than an hour from downtown Richmond. It has a 40-acre lake with channel catfish and largemouth bass. It has cabins, camping space, a variety of outdoors classes, a swimming beach and trails.

And while the park itself is not huge, it's nestled in the 16,000-acre Cumberland State Forest, so it feels much bigger. Pocahontas State Park, by contrast, is the state's largest park at 7,600 acres.

After a brief but successful (a 2-pound largemouth bass) morning fishing outing from the shores of Bear Creek Lake, I meet up with Kneipp, a park ranger of three years, who volunteers to show me the park and surrounding forest.

Parisi drives us out into the state forest, and we hike back toward the park on the Willis River Trail. The park has about 5 miles of trail, but Cumberland SF offers access to the 16-mile Willis River Trail and the 14-mile Cumberland Multi-Use Trail.

"They manage their forests well, but they're not managed for people," Kneipp says early on.

This is exactly what makes this area so attractive. The park is very much managed for people - you can fish, camp, canoe and picnic there. The forest is not. It's managed for timber and wildlife.

During deer seasons, hunters often stay at the cabins in the park and hunt in the state forest. Turkey and black bears are active in the area, as are a multiplicity of nongame species.

Kneipp points out sections of the forest in different stages of succession as we walk, indicating a variety of habitats for birds. Some like the loblolly pines, oaks and tulip poplars, others the understory birches and dogwoods. A recent park goer, he says, counted 39 songbirds during an overnight stay.

Unlike those in the park, trees that come down across the trail in the state forest rot away with the seasons. Ferns grow out of the decaying trunks, and giant red oaks and tulip trees soar to the top of the canopy nearby. This may not be old growth forest, but it feels primeval, a feeling enhanced by the absolute absence of any human-made sounds.

The Willis River Trail is surprisingly hilly in places. For a while, it follows the bends of a dry gulch. Farther on, Little Bear Creek meets up and runs alongside the narrow path. In places, the creek is no more than a slough. Where it gets deep, Kneipp suspects a beaver had dammed it up. Nearer the border of forest and park, we come across the three dramas, one after the other.

Our hike takes us back to the park via the Lakeside Trail, the park's longest at 3.5 miles. We re-enter through a wetland where Bear Creek and Little Bear Creek join to form the lake. A turtle slides off a log into the water as we pass near, and a boater far off on the lake surface casts for bass or catfish.

"You're just outside of Richmond," Kneipp says. "But you really can get away from it all out here."