Lake Anna State Park occupies 3,127 acres on the public side of a 13,000-acre reservoir that Virginia Electric and Power created in 1972 by damming the North Anna River. The lake was built to cool the North Anna Nuclear Generating Station, and stone dikes divide it in two. The roughly 4,000-acre warm side, which takes the plant's discharge, is closed to all but shoreline property owners and plant employees. The cold side, about 9,000 acres, holds the marinas, the public ramps and this beach. None of that is visible from the sand. What you see is a broad, quiet arm of a 17-mile lake, wooded shoreline folding into coves in both directions, and private docks a half mile off across the water.

The beach is a crescent of pale sand roughly 370 feet along the waterline and 270 feet deep, laid out below a mowed grass slope at the end of the park road. A paved walkway with steel handrails runs down from the parking lot to the sand, and a split-rail fence separates grass from beach. Buoys mark a swimming area that pushes about 320 feet out, and inside it the bottom is sand and stays shallow a long way before dropping off. Old stumps and pilings break the surface just outside the marked zone, left from the farmland and river bottom that went under in 1972. A bathhouse sits at the top of the slope beside a snack bar that runs 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day.

Swimming is unguarded and at your own risk, and the park states plainly that swimming anywhere outside the marked beach area is prohibited. There is no admission gate, but daily parking is charged year-round at $7 per passenger vehicle, rising to $10 on weekends from April through October, with $3 more for a boat trailer. Virginia does publish a per-person swim fee for Lake Anna, $4 weekday and $5 weekend for ages 13 and up and $3 and $4 for ages 3 to 12, but it applies only when the beach is guarded, which the park does not currently offer.

Everything else is within walking distance of the sand. Eleven trails totaling more than 15 miles run through hardwood and pine, most of them easy; Big Woods Trail covers 1.2 moderate miles and Old Pond Trail is a paved 0.2-mile walk that takes a stroller. There is a public boat ramp, and single and tandem kayaks rent on site through the Whenever Watersports app. Anglers work the bank for largemouth bass, crappie and bream, and a two-acre pond near the visitor center is reserved for children and visitors with disabilities. Gold turned up on this ground in 1829 and mining peaked in the 1880s, so the park guides tours of the Goodwin Gold Mine and teaches panning. Overnight there are 46 campsites, ten two-bedroom cabins, six camping cabins, four yurts and two six-bedroom lodges. The entrance is at 6800 Lawyers Road, about eight miles northeast of Mineral.