Oh you better believe that's a paddlin.
Alright everyone the time of the year is nigh, and we're planning the Moomaw trip for 2025! The plan is to go on Thursday July 3rd, and stay three nights. Of course, if anyone wants to do longer or shorter all that is fine.
Basic Plan for the Uninitiated
The Greenwood Point campground is a first come first serve spot that we have been to a bunch of times now and have the logistics pretty down pat. There are three-ish multi-tent areas within the full campground, so we'll have a choice of where to camp to get the best views and fit the our crew.
Camping Setup
To get to the campground you either hike-in or boat-in. Because most of us are in canoes, we can really carry in a lot of stuff. It's effectively car camping with more planning. That said, it is still considered "primitive" camping, which means that there is no electricity, water, or bathrooms. Don't let that scare you though, we can carry in a lot of water for drinking and filter lake water for cooking. There are a couple of porta potties in the campground, but they can be pretty gross not gunna lie. Pee in woods poop in porta potty as swiftly as possible, it's not so bad. There is no cell signal, but it's fine - we'll have walkie-talkies.
You'll need the basic camping gear including a tent, sleeping pad, sleeping bag, warm clothes in case it gets chilly, and a FLASHLIGHT (hopefully headlamp). As for advanced camping gear like cooking stove, axe/saw, knives, etc. I have a lot of that stuff. If you're in doubt about what you need to bring let me know. I have a packing list in the planning spreadsheet as well, which I definitely use myself to make sure I've remembered everything.
Getting to the Camp
You can't park directly at the campground so you either hike in 3.3 miles (yellow route) OR THE BETTER WAY is to boat in like a mile from the launch area on the other side of the lake (red route). The hike is definitely doable.
Via boat, you park at the Coles Point Boat Ramp and paddle up around the point to the campground. Via hike, you park and basically follow this trail. To the left there's a little map, where yellow is hike and red is boat.
But I Don't Have a Canoe!?
Never fear, neither do I. For the last bunch of trips we have rented from Allegheny Outdoors. It's pretty cheap, like $45/day. It works out really well because they are right on the way so you don't have to haul a boat very far. Every time we've rented from them they've been super helpful, but make sure to reserve ahead of time so they have the boat ready to go.
New in 2025!
It looks like Allegheny Outdoors has actually added a dedicated booking option for our trip! On the Paddle Trips page there's now an option for Lake Moomaw Camping, with a 4 day option. Seems like this have everything that we need including the boat drop off described below and makes it way easier!
The last couple years they've also have offered the option of dropping off the boats at the launch and then picking them up for us. We've done this since they started offering it and it's made it MUCH easier when we were arriving.
Food/Drank
Generally speaking, I'm always on team shared resources. For this kind of trip where we have to carry stuff in it makes it slightly trickier, but I think it makes a ton of sense to do shared dinners and breakfasts - and have snacks/lunches be on individuals. I'll for sure bring my camp dutch oven that can cook a ton of food for shared dinners (bean forward meals, obviously). We've gotten pretty good at cooking a large amount of food over the last couple trips with the guiding principles: uncured meat and eggs suck to deal with, pasta cooks quickly and is amazingly delicious, and dried beans... obviously. For breakfasts we'll keep it simple. We've often brought in a bunch of bagels for one day and oatmeal and easy food for the others. Though we've never tried camp dutch oven biscuits... maybe this year we'll dare. As for snacks and lunches, this is where it's best for people to bring stuff for themselves. I'd recommend just simple things like PBJ, trail mix, things that don't need to stay cold and you're not too worried about getting crushed. For drank, liquor is more value for weight, but basically I'd say bring all you can and we'll do our best. Take a look at the notes from previous trips in the spreadsheets and you'll get a sense of what has been good in the past. As for ice, I'll bring a big cooler that we can leave in my truck and store extra ice in. Ideally, we should try to minimize the things that need to be kept cool for logistical ease. Beers/seltzers tend to be the main chilled items, but it doesn't all need to be cold at the same time.
Another important principle, we want to try and bring in as little trash as possible - we'll have to carry all of it back out. Glass should be minimized (though liquor and wine bottles will likely be an exception), trying to combine packaging and whatnot is very helpful. Leave no trace!
Activities
Lake Moomaw is gorgeous and is super nice to go swimming and boating around. If we want to fish we should get a fishing license from Virginia. I don't have any poles myself, so if anyone has them I highly encourage you trying to catch our meals, but on all previous trips the fish have been quite elusive. Still it's very fun to cast around. IF YOU WANT TO BOAT YOU NEED A PFD. We can also go on some hikes around and generally just carry on.
And of course, hittin' dingers, All Star karaoke, and diving competitions.