Bear Creek Lake is a small park with a lot packed into it. The 329-acre state park sits in the middle of the 16,000-acre Cumberland State Forest in central Virginia, an hour west of Richmond, and its centerpiece is a 40-acre lake with a sand beach on the south shore. The beach has a roped swim area, a bathhouse and a snack bar, and it is open from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day. No lifeguard is on duty. Parking is a per-vehicle state park fee at the contact station, which is the only charge to swim. The address is 22 Bear Creek Lake Road, off VA 629 north of the town of Cumberland.

The lake is electric-motor only, and the boathouse next to the beach rents canoes, kayaks, paddleboards and jon boats, so a lazy loop of the shoreline is easy to add to a beach day. Fishing is good for largemouth bass, bluegill and channel catfish, and there is a fishing pier and a boat ramp for cartop and small trailered boats. The lake is fed by Bear Creek and sits low in a bowl of hardwoods, so the water is calm and the beach gets shade by late afternoon, which is when the day-use crowd thins and the swim is best.

Trails are the park's other draw. Inside the park boundary there are about eight miles for hikers, and two longer routes leave from the park: the 15.7-mile Cumberland Multi-use Trail, a loop through the state forest open to mountain bikes and horses, and the 16-mile Willis River Trail, a point-to-point hiking route that follows the Willis River through the forest. Riders and hikers park at the trailhead lot near the entrance. The forest roads that lace the state forest are open to bikes as well, and in fall the hunting seasons make blaze orange a good idea on anything outside the park boundary. A 10-lane archery range near the beach is free to use with your own gear, and the park runs a summer schedule of ranger programs, night hikes and canoe tours from the boathouse.

The campground has 45 sites in three loops named Acorn, Black Oak and Chestnut, with water and electric hookups on most and a bathhouse in each loop, open March through early December. Cabins and a 16-person lodge sit on the wooded hillside above the lake and are booked most summer weekends months out. The park began in 1940 as a wayside inside the state forest, one of the first recreation areas Virginia's forestry agency opened to the public, and it did not become a state park until decades later. Cumberland is a farm-and-forest county without much traffic, so the park stays uncrowded on weekdays even in July.