Arnold Valley Pool is a hidden, spring-fed swimming hole tucked into the mountains near Natural Bridge Station, Virginia, in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests below the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is a local favorite for good reason: massive boulders wall the clear pool on three sides, a natural rock slide feeds swimmers into the deepest part, nearly twelve feet down, and a twenty-foot rope swing hangs over water deep enough to jump into safely. Being spring-fed, the water stays bracingly cold even at the height of a Virginia summer, which is exactly the appeal on a hot day.

Reaching it is part of the fun. The approach starts on the Blue Ridge Parkway at about Milepost 71, where an unmarked gravel road drops off the mountain and winds down into Arnold Valley for a few miles; the swimming hole sits just a couple hundred feet off the road, so once you find the pull-off there is barely any walking. It shares its access road with Devil's Marbleyard, the enormous quartzite boulder field reached by a roughly one-and-a-half-mile climb on the Belfast Trail, so many people pair a morning scramble on the rocks with an afternoon cooling off in the pool.

Facilities are minimal, this is a natural forest swimming hole rather than a developed beach, but the Cave Mountain Lake Recreation Area campground nearby, with dozens of forest campsites and its own small swimming lake, makes an easy basecamp for a weekend of swimming and hiking, and the upper James River runs through the valley below for paddling and fishing. The best season runs from late spring through early fall, roughly May through October, when the air is warm enough to make the cold plunge worth it.

Come prepared for the shock of the water, mind the rocks around the slide and rope swing, and always wade in to check depth before you jump, since levels shift with the season and rainfall. For boulders, a rope swing and a natural slide in cold mountain water, Arnold Valley is one of the best swimming holes in the Lexington and Natural Bridge area.

Panther Falls is one of the most popular swimming holes in the central Virginia mountains, a broad, boulder-framed cascade on the Pedlar River just east of the Blue Ridge Parkway near Buena Vista and Vesuvius, within the George Washington National Forest. The falls themselves are only about ten feet high, but the setting is perfect: two massive rock shelves frame the drop, and the deep pool below is almost completely ringed by stone, forming a natural swimming amphitheater that fills with people on hot summer weekends.

Getting there is quick. From the gravel parking area off the Panther Falls Road, a short trail of about four-tenths of a mile drops through the woods to the river, splitting near the falls into a low route down to the water and a high route along the top of the boulders. The high shelves are the draw for the bold: jumpers launch from ledges that stand roughly fifteen to twenty feet above the pool, and the water below is deep enough to take them, though as with any jump the smart move is to wade in and check the depth and landing zone yourself first, since levels shift with rainfall.

The Pedlar is cold, clear mountain water and the spot is genuinely beautiful, but it earns real respect. The short trail is often muddy where small streams cross it, the wet rock is slick, and most important an undercut ledge rings part of the pool while the current can run strong enough that climbing back out is harder than it looks. This is a place where people have gotten into trouble, so it is no spot for weak swimmers or unsupervised kids, and there are no facilities or lifeguards.

Late spring through early fall is the season, and early or midweek visits avoid the biggest crowds. Panther Falls sits close to the Blue Ridge Parkway and pairs naturally with nearby mountain swimming holes like Arnold Valley Pool, about nine miles away, for a full day of Virginia mountain water.