Backyard adventures: Nature area offers quiet amid city chaos

Charlottesville offers the pizazz of arts and culture worthy of big cities. But it has something the big cities might not be able to offer: a bucolic getaway within city limits.

Once you turn off Earlysville Road into the Ivy Creek Natural Area, an escape hatch from stress awaits.

Just up the hill from a bustling Albemarle County road, the 215-acre Ivy Creek site offers a taste of rural respite with enough unspoiled space and quiet to unfrazzle most of your nerves.

You don’t have to be outdoorsy to try the trails. Even if your idea of roughing it is having to watch your Netflix selection without microwave popcorn, you’ll be able to find your way back to your car with ease.

The Central Red Trail, which is 1½ miles long, is the natural area’s Main Street, offering a comprehensive view of the woods, fields and water. It leads back to the parking lot, restroom building and barn.

The Red Trail also is a convenient departure point if you decide to try a more challenging route to get a different perspective. Just follow the color-coded signposts along the way to take a road less traveled. A paved trail opens up more options for visitors using wheelchairs or strollers.

All the trails are intended for peaceful walking, so here’s your chance to stow away the cell phone. It’s a good idea to wear closed, comfortable shoes or boots that will offer plenty of support for walking up and down hills on the unpaved trails, and sunscreen is a good idea even under the forest canopy.

Ivy Creek also offers educational walks, talks and other events, including Toddler Time during which little ones can discover where the wild things really are. Just visit www.ivycreekfoundation.org, click on “The Natural Areas” and select Ivy Creek Natural Area to find the history of the area and listings of more than 40 guided nature walks and other events.

The natural area is maintained by the Ivy Creek Foundation, a volunteer-powered nonprofit organization that preserves not only the spot’s natural resources, but also its rich history of African-American achievement and agricultural innovation.

The trails that visitors walk today once were part of River View Farm, the home of Hugh Carr.

Carr grew up in slavery and spent his adult life working toward a different future for his family. He farmed for others at first, saving his money to purchase his own place, and in 1870 he bought the first 58 acres of what would become River View Farm.

When Carr died in 1914, his oldest daughter, Mary, and her husband, Conly Greer, kept adding land until the spread reached 230 acres. Greer, a North Carolina native with an agriculture degree, dove into making improvements to the farm.

He became Albemarle County’s first black extension agent in 1918. Ivy Creek’s barn reflected the state-of-the-art farming practices Greer taught.

By the time Mary Carr Greer died in 1973, people realized that the farm was an island of rural history surrounded by an expanding urbanized world. The Ivy Creek Foundation’s creators teamed up with the Nature Conservancy to protect the land from development. A federal grant helped the foundation, the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County buy the property and some nearby land to create the preserve.

Ivy Creek Natural Area’s secret-hideaway feel may seem most apparent once you’ve pulled out of the parking lot and turned onto Earlysville Road once more. Before you realize it, you’re at the bustling intersection of Rio and Hydraulic roads, and you’re not in the wilderness anymore. But it’s great knowing that a peaceful oasis is so close to the bustle of urban life.

-- Norris, who writes for The Daily Progress in Charlottesville, can be reached at jnorris@dailyprogress.com.

If you’re going
-- WHAT: Ivy Creek Natural Area
-- WHEN: Open daily from 7 a.m. to sunset
-- WHERE: Earlysville Road in Albemarle County, half a mile north of the intersection of Rio and Hydraulic roads
-- COST: Free
-- INFO: Call (434) 973-7772 or visit www.ivycreekfoundation.org.