2025 Guided Hikes: Varina LandLab Herp Hike with a Herp Nerd

Capital Region Land Conservancy is excited to welcome naturalist, Karl Kratzer, to the Varina LandLab Conservation Area for our first herpetology hike. Joined by CRLC Land Stewardship Manager, Ashley Moulton, we’ll guide hikers off the beaten path on Saturday, May 31, 2025 for a leisurely morning hike from 10:00am – 12:00pm to seek herps like frogs, turtles and snakes along Roundabout and Four Mile Creek. 

ABOUT THE AREA

CRLC’s Varina LandLab consists of 353 acres on Deep Bottom Road. The property was gifted to CRLC in 2021 to support public access to the outdoors and environmental education opportunities. It has been permanently protected since 2017 by a conservation easement co-held by CRLC and the Henricopolis Soil and Water Conservation District. Dedicated for public access, trails are open daily, dawn to dusk. The Varina LandLab is located in eastern Henrico County adjacent to Deep Bottom Park and fronts the James River, Four Mile Creek, and Roundabout Creek. It is dubbed a “LandLab” for its purpose as an outdoor classroom for local K-12 students, University classes, and curious minds of all ages.

ABOUT THE HIKE

We’ll explore the mature wooded areas nearest bodies of water on the Varina LandLab including swampy backwaters and streams to seek opportunities to hear and see herps. Some species we hope to find and learn to identify are turtles, frog species, salamanders, fence lizards, skinks, and potentially snakes.

GUEST GUIDE BIO

Karl Kratzer is a seasoned biologist/naturalist by education, profession, and hobby.  He has spent much of his early career delineating wetlands and mapping habitat for threatened and endangered plant and animal species for projects throughout the east coast. Karl has been a member of the Virginia Herpetological Society for over ten years and has contributed to Virginia’s distribution databases with finds of rare species. Karl volunteers his time at Virginia’s national wildlife refuges conducting vernal pool surveys for spotted salamanders and wood frogs; and is also a member of Machicomoco State Park friends’ group where he has helped map the park’s vegetational communities as well as identify and protect terrapin nesting habitat.

INSTRUCTIONS