Hiking trails of
where ?
You read it correctly: Hiking Trails of Washington, D.C. For most people, the first thoughts that come to mind about the District of Columbia are things like crooked politicians, shining white monuments with cherry trees, or the Smithsonian museums.
Regardless of your impressions of my home town, you probably don’t associate Washington with blue-blazed hiking trails along ridgetops. Or forests populated by pileated woodpeckers. Or a deer that bounds away from you as you approach it on a wooded trail. But you can find these and more right in the District of Columbia.
In terms of hiking opportunities, Washington, D.C. is unique among American cities of its size. Few if any other urban areas can boast of a system of interconnecting hiking trails even in the close-in suburbs, let alone the city itself. But in our nation's capital, one can hike through thick woods that seem to be miles from civilization, and then walk back into the maelstrom of the city in a matter of minutes.
Nonetheless, many avid hikers who live in Washington never think about walking these trails that are practically on their doorstep. As if on automatic pilot, they point their walking sticks westward to Shenandoah National Park or the Appalachian Trail. The result is severe overcrowding that diminishes the wilderness experience. On Old Rag Mountain, the congestion has become so severe that the National Park Service has been forced to build satellite parking lots. Likewise, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath has become the "New Jersey Turnpike of hiking trails" on summer Sundays. But directly across the river on the Potomac Heritage Trail, the fortunate hiker who knows that it’s there will probably have a mile or two of the trail to himself.
You don’t have to spend a fortune on gas to hike these trails. I’ve hiked many of them without using my car at all. The wealth of public transportation in Washington eliminates, in most cases, the need for a cumbersome car shuttle on one-way hikes. The only major trails not on bus or rail lines are ones in or beyond the outer suburbs. I’ll deal with those after I’ve written about everything in the city itself.
Look at any decent map of Washington closely. In the northwest quadrant, you will see an amazing matrix of stream valley parks and narrow greenways, all of which tie together. Rock Creek, Glover-Archbold, and Battery Kemble parks all have a north-south orientation. Whitehaven, Pinehurst Branch, Wesley Heights, Soapstone Valley, Melvin Hazen and the C&O Canal parks are on an east-west axis. The Capital Crescent Trail is both, as it travels west before swinging north in an arc around the city.
I know what you’re probably thinking if you’ve read this far.
What about crime? Are these parks safe to walk in? Well, I’ve been hiking in them for about 48 years and have never been a victim of a crime. No place is completely crime-free. Several hikers have been murdered on the Appalachian Trail over the years. In Shenandoah National Park, two women were murdered in 1996 at a backcountry campsite.
Most people don’t realize it, but the media tends to sensationalize the crime that does occur. The Washington Post recently did a six part series on Chandra Levy, whose body was found in Rock Creek Park in 2001. Don’t get me wrong. This crime was a tragedy, and every human life is precious. However, it is safe to say that this sort of thing does not happen in Washington parks very often. When something does happen, the newspapers and TV news blow it all out of proportion and make you feel that you’d be safer in Iraq than in whatever park was involved.
Just use some common sense. Don’t hike after dark. (most of the parks in the city are legally closed at dark anyway, and no camping is permitted). Don’t wear flashy jewelry, watches or anything else that will draw attention to yourself. If you are fearful about hiking alone, take a companion.
It is my hope that this blog will help familiarize Washington area hikers about opportunities in their own back yard. Reducing automobile use should be a goal of every lover of the outdoors. Some hikers think nothing of driving 200 miles round trip for a day’s hiking in the Blue Ridge. And many people have no idea that the trails I plan to write about even exist. I have hiked many of them without seeing another person the entire distance.
I will cover one park or trail at a time in upcoming posts. Some, like Rock Creek Park, will probably require several posts.
The distance figures are derived from a project I carried out in the early 1990s. I measured each trail with a measuring wheel and wrote extremely detailed writeups about it. I won't bore you with that, but I'll use the mileage figures when it's helpful. Distances are calibrated to the nearest hundredth of a mile, for example 1.19 miles.
Stay tuned and happy hiking.
