Talley Your Adventure – The Blog

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park is a long, winding park that follows the Potomac River from Georgetown, DC to Cumberland Maryland. You can access much of the park via car by driving to various locations along the 184.5 miles that the canal call home! In particular, the Great Falls area enjoys a wonderfully vibrant surrounding community that is built on recreation (kayakers, hikers, bikers), those that love the park and people who are visiting DC and want to get away from the city.

The trails in the Great Falls section of the C&O Canal are absolutely fabulous and I highly recommend that if you are in the area you take a couple hours to come out and enjoy for yourself. There are a couple different ones depending on your comfort level. For instance, if you want to bring your dog and enjoy views of the Potomac River on a relatively easy path, the River Trail is definitely for you. If you want more of a rocky, scrambling experience that does not allow your dog friend, I recommend Billy Goat-A (BGT-A) as it has a traverse that is pretty difficult but the trail itself is relatively short (1.75 miles). There are also two other trails right outside the Visitor Center, Ford Mine and Gold Mine, that connect with other trails and can be considered easy or difficult depending on how far you want to go. For all visitors, it is a must walking out to the Great Falls Overlook to see the mighty Potomac in all her glory – and point and laugh at the Virginia side. 😉

Visiting the park can also include many different forms of historical programming depending on the visitor center you drive up to for the day. In Great Falls, there are mules that can be fed and pet depending on the day of the week, and up in Williamsport you can enjoy a boat ride on a small launch boat on the canal. The one thing bringing all of this together is the historical connection of the canal itself, which began construction in 1828. Though Ohio is in the name, that was truly because the dream was to have the canal end in the Ohio River Valley. This was not to be, as the canal – though a modern marvel at the time of finalization in the 1850s – was still quickly overcome by the mighty railroads. It never made it past Cumberland, Ohion.

There is plenty to do when visiting the C&O Canal!