Exploring Great Falls

A few weeks ago, my current roommate and I decided to put all of the small talk of wanting to go hiking to the test. We woke up fairly early and headed off to the Virginia entrance of Great Falls Park. We parked and headed off on the trail to the left of the main parking lot. A few minutes later we wondered if we had started off on the wrong trail. We asked a family on bikes, but they didn't seem to know which way they were going either. Nonetheless, we had a great time taking pictures, chatting, and pondering the way Native Americans used to run along rivers. We climbed quite a few rocky patches but it didn't seem to be the hardcore hiking we had expected. It was probably better off that we didn't find the actual trail we wanted to do; we were both sweating buckets by the time we got back to the car. Good ol' DC humidity for ya!

On our way back towards the car, we decided to walk past our starting point. There, we came across the rapids (which I'm pretty sure we set off to find in the first place). As we stopped to climb one of the viewpoints and take pictures, we noticed a kayaker down in the water. Seconds later, we noticed a photographer next to us with a Redbull logo on his backpack. We put two and two together once we saw the kayaker wave up and point further along the Potomac River. We waited for a while to see what sort of tricks he would pull out from his oars, but the heat got the best of us and we returned home for a large glass of water.

I spy with my little eye...

  

The Potomac River

A daddy long leg spider

A deer

Great Falls

A crazy kayaker

Taking a break

Pondering the greatness of Mother Earth

Maryland on the left, Virginia on the right

By the time we left, a bunch of families were starting to set up for picnics and lazy afternoons in the shade. The line to get into the park was at least a mile long. It's safe to say the best time to get into the park is mid morning. Next time I'm bringing my lunch and painting supplies!

More hiking stories to come!

“After a day's walk everything has twice its usual value.”  George Macauley Trevelyan