A few weeks back, I covered the annual First Day Hikes held at High Bridge Trail State park — where over 200 people showed up — and at Bear Creek Lake State Park in Prince Edward and Cumberland, respectively.

While the turnouts were great at both hikes, there was one thing that concerned me as I left High Bridge Trail and Bear Creek to head home.

A majority of the people I met and saw were from out of town.

Now, please don’t think I’m saying that’s a problem, because it surely is not. It’s a wonderful thing that folks from Richmond, Lynchburg and the areas surrounding the Heart of Virginia come to our parks, eat at our restaurants and shop in our stores. We need that to survive.

The problem I do have is that seeing very few local people at these events — a majority of whom were there working the hikes — supports my notion that so many local people don’t take advantage of the state parks that are just a few minutes down the road from our homes.

When we pay our state income taxes and other millages sent to Richmond, part of that money goes toward the upkeep, employment and operations of these state parks, which are all around us.

There are cabins to stay in, biking trails, walking paths, ponds to fish in, lakes to swim in, sites to camp in at these places in Prince Edward, Buckingham and Cumberland, and we, as a community, need to take advantages of these venues that our tax dollars support and keep up.

These places are open to the public, not just visitors from Richmond, Northern Virginia or Norfolk. They’re open to all of us.

According to High Bridge Trail State Park Manager Daniel Jordan, well over 200,000 people visited the park last year — an almost 6-percent jump from the prior year’s numbers.

I’m willing to bet that a small fraction of those visitors were local people.

Let’s top that number for 2016, and all the rest of the visitation numbers at our local state parks, by visiting them and supporting them more often.

Jordan Miles is managing editor of The Farmville Herald. His email address is jordan.miles@farmvilleherald.com.