Every organization we link to: local tourism offices, the state and federal agencies that manage the land, the nonprofits and clubs that keep access open, and the universities doing the research.
Almost Heaven Swings
What Stonewall Jackson Lake State Park is
Stonewall Jackson Lake State Park sits on 2,650 acres of water with 82 miles of shoreline in central West Virginia, and it carries the most developed resort facilities of any lake park in the state. There is a lodge, a marina and an Arnold Palmer golf course on the property. That combination is unusual for a West Virginia state park, where the norm is a campground, a bathhouse and a trailhead, and it is the reason this park works as a base for a family where not everyone wants to spend the day in a boat.
The location does as much work as the facilities. The park is off Interstate 79 in the middle of the state, which puts it within an easy drive of most of West Virginia and makes it a common first stop for people who have not been to the Mountain Lakes region before. The lake is one of three major Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs in this part of the state, alongside Sutton and Burnsville, and it is the only one of the three with a resort park built around it.
Sailing the largest open water in the park system
The lake has the state's largest open-water fetch for small-boat sailing, and it is the best sailing water in the West Virginia state park system. That is the one thing here you cannot get elsewhere in the state. Fetch is the whole argument: a sailboat needs an uninterrupted run of water for the wind to build across, and most West Virginia impoundments are narrow, crooked and wooded to the waterline, which breaks the breeze into fitful patches. Stonewall has a main body wide enough to hold a steady wind, which is a genuinely rare thing in a state shaped like this one.
That does not make it a coast. The wind on an inland reservoir comes and goes with the afternoon, and the same 82 miles of shoreline that give the lake its cove-and-finger shape also mean the breeze changes character as you work away from the open water. Sailors bring their own boats — the marina's rental fleet is powered and paddled rather than sailed, so there is nothing here to charter. If you have a trailerable dinghy or a small catamaran sitting in a garage, this is the water in West Virginia to bring it to, and the season for it is April through October.
What the marina rents
The marina rents pontoons, CraigCats, kayaks, canoes, paddleboards, paddleboats and aqua cycles, which is a wider fleet than any other lake park in the state offers. In practice that means you do not have to own anything to have a full day on the water here. A pontoon covers a group that wants to cruise and swim, the CraigCats and aqua cycles suit people who want to be on the water without operating a boat, and the kayaks, canoes and paddleboards handle the coves. Rates and hours come from the resort, not from this page.
If you bring your own motorboat, the season runs April through October and the administrative side is a state matter. Ramps, navigation rules, registration and public water access are handled through the WVDNR boating program, and motorboat registration and boater education requirements are set by the same agency. Horsepower limits vary from lake to lake in West Virginia, and the limit for this lake is not published in general park information — check it with WVDNR before you trailer a large motor across the state to use it. Sorting the registration and the education card in advance is the difference between launching at eight and launching at eleven.
Fishing for muskie, bass and crappie
The fishery is muskie, bass and crappie. Muskie is the draw for anglers who travel, and the Mountain Lakes reservoirs collectively have a reputation for it — Burnsville, an hour or so south, is described by the agency as excellent muskie water, and Stonewall belongs in the same conversation. Crappie is the family fish here, worked around structure and brush, and bass fills in the rest of the year. Kayak fishing is one of the established uses on the lake, and the marina's kayak rentals make it possible without hauling a boat of your own across the state.
Eighty-two miles of shoreline is a lot of edge to learn, and it is worth thinking of the lake as a set of separate fisheries rather than one. The open main body that makes the sailing good is the least interesting water to fish; the coves, points and flooded timber are where the structure is. Reservoir levels for Corps lakes are published by the Army Corps district office, and a look at the current pool before you leave home tells you which of those coves will have water in them.
Camping at Briar Point and staying at the lodge
Briar Point campground has 46 full-hookup sites and is open year-round. Full hookups and a year-round season together are unusual in the West Virginia park system, where most campgrounds close for the winter and many sites carry electricity only, and they make this a practical stop for anyone travelling I-79 in an RV in February. Forty-six sites is not many for a lake of 2,650 acres, so summer weekends are the real constraint on a trip here. Book well ahead of the date you want, and treat August as the month that fills first.
The lodge is the other half of the accommodation and the reason the park draws people who do not camp at all. It is a resort lodge attached to a state park, with packages that combine a room with golf, and it means a group can split its lodging without splitting up — some in the campground, some in the lodge, everyone on the same water in the morning. That is the practical case for Stonewall Jackson Lake State Park over the region's Corps campgrounds, which offer camping and nothing else at all.
The overlook walk and Chipmunk Point
The Stonewall Resort Overlook is the best short walk on the property and is almost entirely unpublicised for how easy it is. A wide, near-level path circles a small hill and ends at a stone overlook above the lake. It is a walk rather than a hike, suitable for anyone who can manage a level path, and it gives the one view that explains the shape of the lake — the open main body on one side, the fingers running back into the hills on the other. Go when the light is low; that is when it earns the trip.
Chipmunk Point adds about a mile of level lakeside walking to the same outing and is prime hawk-watching. Autumn is the season for that, when raptors move along the ridgelines and the hardwood on the far shore turns. Neither walk demands boots or a map, which makes them the obvious thing to do on a morning when the wind is wrong for sailing or you are waiting for a tee time. The park also carries a broader hiking network, though the overlook and the point are the two walks worth planning around.
Golf, and where to go when the park is full
The Stonewall Resort Golf Course is an Arnold Palmer Signature design on the lake shore, open to public play with lodge packages available. Its real advantage is not the name on the scorecard but the geography: it is off I-79 in the center of the state, which makes it one of the more accessible quality courses in West Virginia, and it is a few minutes from a marina. A morning round and an afternoon on a pontoon is a normal day here, and there is nowhere else in the state where that combination is this simple to arrange.
When the campground and lodge are booked, Cedar Creek State Park is the quiet alternative — 2,483 acres in Gilmer County with three small fishing lakes, a campground and a network of easy trails. The lakes are stocked with trout in season, and use is light outside summer weekends. It has none of the resort facilities and none of the open water, which is precisely the point of going there instead. For flatwater with a campground and no crowd, Burnsville Lake and its Bulltown Campground are the other option, on a 968-acre Corps reservoir the agency rates as excellent muskie water.
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