Hike 23: Seneca Ridge Trail

This one definitely goes in my top ten, maybe even top five!  The book calls this the Greenway Trail, but I have no idea why...all the signs say Seneca Ridge.  Anyway, it's a really fun hike with interesting terrain, changes in scenery, and it's not scary, which, given my last few hikes, was a definite plus! 

You start at Black Rock Mill, which is just an abandoned building now, and, according to the book, was the site for some scenes in The Blair Witch Project...it doesn't look spooky in the daylight.  :)

This hike is popular with bikers too, although I can't imagine doing it without killing myself.  There are some serious ups and down and bumpy sections for anyone on wheels.

I turned around at the first road crossing (Germantown Road), but you could keep going for another 4 miles.  There will definitely be a next time on this hike!

Hike 22: Henson Creek Trail

After wigging out at Cosca Regional Park, I drove a couple miles down the road to the next hike, a trail through Henson Creek Park.  It had great potential and looked very hiker friendly, but there was one little problem...

This happened about a half a mile down the trail, so I turned around and went back.  Ah well...not the best hiking day I've had.  Oh - I did discover Andrews Air Force Base on the way home!  :)

Hike 21: Cosca Regional Park

Completely wigged out on this hike!  It started out fairly auspiciously, except for the fact that this is about as far away from Germantown as you can be while still in the DC Metro Area.  Cosca Regional Park boasts a large nature center which has lovely landscaping and lots of kids going in and out for summer programs while I was in the parking lot.

I followed the trailhead around the back of the nature center and stumbled upon a little mini-bird zoo.  They had four large birds of prey (2 red tailed hawks, great horned owl, bald eagle) on display and that was the best part of the whole hike.

It was a super humid day (sweat was dripping off me as I was standing still) and the trail was pretty messy.  I was a little annoyed by the number of spider web strings that kept getting stuck to me but I talked myself through that...until I walked into a web and the spider landed on me!  I am not brave with bugs.  I shrieked a little and flicked him off.  As I'm psyching myself up to keep going, I walk smack into a spider and its web with my face.  ACK!  That was it.  I turned around and went back to the car.

Hike 20: Patuxent Research Refuge

Hiked this with Biz a couple weeks ago.  She'd actually been before cuz some of her students did internships here, studying wetlands birds and whatnot.  It's near Laurel and farther north in PG County than I'd realized.  The refuge used to be where Fort Meade was and when you enter, you have to go to the ranger station and register your car and sign a form that says you won't take stuff even though the whole area's been cleared out of anything smacking of potentially confidential military paraphernalia. 

There are a bunch of intersecting loop trails, totally about 15 miles.  We did about 5 of them and saw an interesting collage of nature.  The trail started out with a nicely wooded trail and then opened up onto basically a dirt road that led to a little pond. 

It was very serene and Biz identified woodpeckers and cicadas.  My woodsense is about as good as my directional sense.  :)  She spotted all sorts of wildlife - goldfinches, some green beetle thing, dragonflies, butterflies, and even found deer tracks! 

After a little more hiking down the dirt trail, the path opens up and you see these gigantic power line towers.  There wasn't a whole lot of shade on this part of the trail so we booked it back around to the woodsy part. 

It's a nice little place, but there's long sections of unattractive road so not my favorite hike so far.

Hike 19: Greenbelt Park

Greenbelt Park is a nice little camping area in PG County with about 8 miles of hiking loops.  It's a nicely wooded trail with a few joggers (hard to do on such uneven ground!) and lots of dog walkers. 

It's very easy to get to and the trail is easy to follow.  I say this with the caveat that I did get a little bit lost even with a map, but that's just cuz I'm directionally deficient.  :)  All I did was end up on a dead end trail and had to turn back to the loop part.  There was a LOT of derecho damage to look at.  Trees were just ripped in half and there was all sorts of debris lying on the ground. 

It was super humid the day I hiked, so I shortened the loop quite a bit.  The only real downside to this hike is that it's pretty far away from my house.  It's just as easy for me to get the same feel hiking around the Germantown lake.

Hike 18: Lake Artemesia

This was a lovely little hike around a lake in Greenbelt.  (Not sure what the black smoke is...something was burning...)  It's a lot like the hike around the little lake behind our house in Germantown.  Totally paved, 2.5 mile loop - lots of joggers, fishers, and bird watchers and cute little places to sit and enjoy nature.  The chorus of cicadas was pervasive and the Metro passing by every couple minutes was fun - I can totally see kids loving it! 

There are two places you can connect to longer trails - Paint Branch Trail, which goes further north in PG county, and the Northeast Branch, which leads south toward DC, eventually meeting the Northwest Branch, where they merge into the Anacostia.  All in all, it was a very nice hike and I'd definitely go again.

Hike 17: McKee Beshers Wildlife Management Area

I should have known when I read the description of this hike to stay away...this is the kind of hike where my mom thinks I will get mauled by bears or something.  The book first describes the hike as former farmland managed as habitat for game species and other wildlife - cool, right?  I like deer and looking at wildlife.  How bad can farmland be?  Then the warnings start..."Follow my directions carefully because the WMA segments are unblazed and unsignposted."  Great.  I get lost easily enough as it is!  "The WMA is seasonally poular with both vicious insects and hunters."  Hm...  "Beware of periodic field trials when hunters are allowed to shoot birds for their dogs to retrieve."  Double hm...

Well, I'll try it anyway - it's right off River Road, easy to find.  I find a parking spot off River Road, but I don't see any trails and the path is blocked off by a yellow gate.  Not sure if I'm just supposed to just walk around it, so I keep driving onto an inner road along the trail.  This road is completely unpaved and very bumpy in a car...no big deal, if I'm walking it won't be bumpy.  Then it starts to get sketchy.  First of all, there is NO ONE around.  Second, there are signs on every other tree that say "Beware of active hunters."  Third, there's no path and the area right off the road is completely overgrown and flooded.  And this was the clincher...bugs were hitting my car as I drove past, but I wasn't real worried cuz I had bug spray and they might have been dragonflies, which are harmless.  Nope, not dragonflies.  GIGANTIC BEES.  And that was the fat lady singing on this hike!  Can you imagine?  I'd have been lying in the middle of the road, shot by a hunter or dying from hundreds of bee stings.  Sheesh.

Hike 12: Glover Archbold Park

Well, I tried to do this hike yesterday, but encountered parking issues.  The book said to park at Fletcher's Boathouse off Canal Road, but I couldn't get there.  It might have been because Canal Road is only one-way into DC during rush hour, but there was no way to turn into the parking lot from the direction I was going.  And there's nowhere to park on Canal Rd after you've passed some of the locks further up north.  So I ended up on GW Parkway headed north on River Rd to try Hike 17.  I might try this hike again, but I might need a DC native to go with me because the directions to get there are really vague: "walk down the Capital Crescent Trail and find a tunnel" or "north of the flowershop, there's a field that leads to the path."  Really?

OK, it's almost three years later and I finally found the park!  The trick is to go at it from the north, not the south.  This time I took the metro to Tenleytown, walked a few block to Van Ness, and the "trailhead" is in that vicinity.  It's mostly a dirt path in the middle of a field...not the best-marked thing in the world.  But thanks to Google Maps, I only overshot it once!  This is actually one of my new favorite hikes.  It's sort of weird because you're in the middle of a forest and then you're on one of the busiest streets in DC and you repeat that a couple times.  But it's really quite straightforward and lovely.  All sorts of people are on the trail walking their dogs, trail running, taking a break from work... 

I happened to be on the trail a day after a major thunderstorm that almost knocked a tree branch onto our car and broke our patio umbrella.

 

I mention this because this created some very interesting road blocks that appeared intermittently during the hike.  One you just sort of crawled through, one you walked around, and the third one you had to climb over. 

But pretty soon, you make it to the Capital Crescent Trail, which somehow connects to the C&O Canal Towpath, and tada!, Georgetown is right there!  I've never been to Georgetown, and that seems a travesty after living in the area for almost fifteen years, so what's the first place I visit?  Georgetown Cupcake, of course!  Plus I was getting hungry.  One chocolate hazelnut cupcake and and Izze soda later, I was ready to explore! 

I walked back to the waterfront, where people were playing in a community fountain, lounging around in the grass, and eating a riverside lunch.  Everyone in Georgetown looks like they belong in a really high tax bracket.  :)  I wandered down M Street and found the Old Stone House, which is a historic building from the 1700s.

After that, I decided I'd walk back up Wisconsin as far as I could before hitching a ride on a bus to go back to the Metro station.  Deciding where to eat lunch was rather difficult - I wasn't exactly dressed for a sit down place, and eating at Subway in Georgetown seemed like a waste.  I found a really cute deli and had a smoothie and tuna sandwich.  And then I found a place that made homemade ice cream and chocolate!  Of course, I made myself sick eating all this stuff.  Sigh.  Trudged slowly to Tudor Place and wandered around the gardens there. 

Thought about going to Dumbarton, but that one cost $10, so I'll wait until I have out-of-towners to visit there.  At this point I was getting pretty tired of the sun (I forgot my hat), so I hopped on a bus and made it back none the worse for wear!

Hike 16: C&O Canal

Bike/hiked this trail last year with the Boettchers - so cute!  Next time, Schuyler will be all by herself and Townsend will be in the buggy!

Not sure where we started, but we ended up at Riley's Lock where they had Girl Scouts dressed up in period costume running tours of Riley's Lockhouse. 

The C&O Canal is a great biking trip.  It's flat and the path is wide and you can't get lost.  :)  It's a little slow to hike, I think, and the scenery is pretty monotonous.

Hike 15: Billy Goat Trail and Great Falls

I've been in Colorado the last week, so I haven't been on any new hikes, but Billy Goat Trail is definitely one of my favorites!  The Billy Goat Trail is connected to the C&O Canal Towpath, but the easy gravel pathway along the towpath is not at all indicative of the rocky climbs along the Billy Goat Trail. 

The BGT has three sections (A, B, and C) and A is the hardest, but it's also the most fun and has awesome views of the Potomac River. 

You can't bring dogs onto Section A, though, so the first time I hiked it, we only did Section B and C.

As you can see from the next picture, Section A is a bit more challenging...

...but never boring!

Hike 14: Black Hill Regional Park

I was at an AP Bio workshop this week, so I couldn't go on any new hikes, but this hike is literally in our backyard!  You can see the trail from our kitchen window and we've been on it a bunch of times.  Since it was 104 degrees in DC today, here's a blast from the past to cool you off...

There's the trail, buried under three feet of snow!  We've walked it, run it, and biked it.  It's a very loopy trail that follows the fingers of Little Seneca Lake, which was created when they put a dam in Little Seneca Creek 40 years ago.  I tend to get lost when straying off the main trail, but it's a very scenic and easy to traverse path.  We see all manner of animals when we hike on it, mostly geese and turtles, but also some nice egret-type birds and small mammals...and fish! 

We discovered the Visitor Center on one of our bike rides down the trail and you can rent boats and they have a great nature center with a pretty butterfly garden.  Did some fun geocaching along the trail too!

Hike 5: National Arboretum

My new favorite place!  And surprisingly so...the description in the book is very bland compared to the awesomeness of the National Arboretum.  It's not hard to get to, and I definitely recommend driving.  The park is HUGE and I only did about a third of it, but I saw the best third!  I think the rest of the park would be great during the blooming season (assuming you don't have lots of allergies).  I wasn't quite sure where I was going, so I parked at the Mount Hamilton footpath and followed trails through rhododendrons and azaleas.

I didn't want to get lost (entirely probable, given the loopy nature of the paths), so I tried not to venture off too far.  As I cleared the azalea collection, I happened onto a very English-type garden and then looked through some trees and saw gigantic Grecian columns standing in the middle of a field!  Even reading about it in the trail book didn't prepare me for the total cool-ness of this view.

So it turns out these are columns from the Capitol building's east portico from 1830-1960.  They were installed at the Arboretum in 1990.  I kept going around the path behind the columns and stumbled upon the North American Pavilion, which doesn't even begin to describe the most amazing collection of bonsai trees I've ever seen!  I took a picture of every single one.  They were so cute!  I mean, they had a giant sycamore no taller than a foot and a half!

 

There's a little courtyard that's very serene and peaceful and a museum, which was great, mostly because they had air conditioning and I did this hike on the day it was supposed to be 98 degrees.  :)  Then you can walk through another pavilion that showcases how the Chinese used rocks and bonsai and water as garden art. 

Around the back, there a patio with tables set out next to a pond containing water lilies and fish!  There were people setting up tents around here, and I bet this is a really popular events location.

It was getting on toward lunch time at this point, so on my way back to the car, I walked through the herb garden, which featured some beautiful landscaping.

This is definitely number one on my list of places I should take tourists.  My mom might even like it, even though her favorite outdoor motto is: You've seen one tree, you've seen them all!

Hike 3: Potomac Park and Hains Point

Hains Point is actually part of East Potomac Park.  It's not the most pedestrian accessible area - definitely do NOT walk down 14th Street, which according to the map, is the most direct way to go, but there's no crosswalks to get over/under the bridge.  But after some maneuvering around the Municipal Fish Market and the Washington Marina, I made it to Ohio Drive, which does a loop around the park down to Hains Point.

The pedestrian path was actually flooded, which amused me to no end, but there was hardly any automobile traffic so I just walked along the curb.  There were lots of fishers, bikers and, surprisingly, rollerbladers!  It's a very picturesque walk, but it got boring fairly quickly.  There's a golf course in the middle of the loop and that's pretty much your scenery the whole way around.

The book said there was a giant aluminum statue thing called The Awakening on Hains Point, but I couldn't find it.  I did find a couple monuments I'd never seen before on my meandering way back to the Smithsonian Metro.  If you follow the signposts on Ohio Drive leaving the park, you'll pass by the George Mason monument, which is quite pretty, although this is only the picture of his statue behind a ring of purple flowers.

Then cross a little bridge over the Tidal Basin to the FDR Memorial.  I've seen this one a bunch of times and it's my favorite - lots of interesting stuff (quotes, bronze sculptures) to look at, waterfalls, great layout.  It's quite symbolic, actually.  The water features are different in each of the four sections of the monument and they all get successively more broken and upset to reflect the state of the world at each time period in his presidency.

And right around the Tidal Basin is the new MLK, Jr Memorial!  I'd never seen it before and I was really mad that my camera ran out of battery so I couldn't take more pics, but it's quite powerful.

P.S.  I looked up The Awakening on the Internet and it's been moved to National Harbor!  I guess I'll have to go there sometime.  It would have made Hains Point a lot more interesting!

Hikes 2 and 4: Columbia and Roosevelt Islands

Columbia Island and Roosevelt Island sit between DC and Virginia with the Potomac River on the east and the man-made Boundary Channel on the west. There's actually a lot of political history surrounding Columbia Island, specifically whether it belongs to DC or VA.  Eventually, DC got Columbia Island and VA got the land where Reagan National Airport was developed. 

I was accompanied on this hike by my friend Manana, and her son, Stevie.  We had a great time even though it rained on us (although sometimes that just adds to the adventure).  I'd never been to either of these islands before and they're not that hard to get to, except you do have to approach the parking lot from GW Parkway north, which takes a little maneuvering through the outer edges of the city.

As is usual when I'm hiking, we started out going the wrong way cuz I wasn't paying attention to where the bridge to the Theodore Roosevelt Island was, but we discovered a very nice section of the Potomac Trail and had a nice view of Key Bridge and Georgetown across the river.

Once we actually crossed the little footbridge to the island, we checked out the memorial to Theodore Roosevelt and walked around the loop.  It's not the most exciting place, but it's probably a nice stop for people who have done the usual tourist stuff.

We followed the Mt. Vernon Trail south and Stevie spotted something that made the entire hike worth it...

They were SO CUTE!!!  Their mom was lying in a space a few hundred feet further.  We were speculating on whether she was hurt or just complacent cuz she was pretty much in the same spot on our return trip too.

We didn't go around the entire loop described in the book cuz honestly, this is not the most pedestrian friendly hike and we had a seven year old with us.  You have to cross GW Parkway in some very busy spots and the trail itself doesn't actually loop so if you want to follow the book's instructions, you have to walk around some highly traveled roadways.

And it rained.  It was a nice little summer shower which got us completely soaked, but, being a summer rain, we also dried off pretty quickly.  We made it to the Arlington Memorial Bridge, saw an interesting monument across the way that I can't identify, and headed back to the car.