There’s no shortage of beautiful lakes to explore in Hampton Roads, from Stumpy Lake in Virginia Beach to Lake Meade in Suffolk and Waller Mill near Williamsburg.
But, believe it or not, those are all man-made lakes: there’s only one natural freshwater lake in Hampton Roads, and I decided to check it out this week.
I'm talking about Lake Drummond in the middle of the Great Dismal Swamp, which is shared between Chesapeake and Suffolk. While hiking to a lake in the middle of a 750-square mile swamp may sound like a big undertaking, it doesn’t have to be.
There are a number of trails leading to Lake Drummond. I accessed the relatively flat, gravel Interior Ditch Trail from the Suffolk side of the swamp. The wide trail has open swamp on each side, so there’s not a huge danger of running into one of the bears or bobcats or snakes that call the Dismal Swamp home.
Lake Drummond itself is wide, but only about six feet deep. Geologists aren’t exactly sure how the lake formed, but there are two main theories: They think it was formed either by a meteorite or by a massive underground fire that burned the underlying peat all the way down to the sand underneath.
I mentioned that Lake Drummond is the only natural, freshwater lake in Hampton Roads, but there is a second natural lake in Virginia that you’ve probably seen on the big screen. The movie Dirty Dancing was filmed at Mountain Lake in Giles County!
