A Trail Guide to Great Falls in Maryland

The C&O Canal National Historical Park in Maryland is one of the longest and narrowest national parklands in the country. The main walking and cycling route along its entire length is the canal towpath, all 184.5 miles of it. But near the Great Falls of the Potomac River, the park broadens out to include the surrounding hills and river islands. This area has an extensive network of trails that makes it one of the best places to hike near Washington, D.C.

The Park Service has a very good trail map (shown below). The reverse side has trail lengths, levels of difficulty, and other basic information. I recommend picking one up at the park visitor center in Great Falls Tavern. If the building is closed, there should be a box outside the front door with maps. You can also download a PDF version; I’ve provided links at the end of this post.

This Trail Guide

My guide to the trails here is intended to complement the Park Service map by providing further information and suggestions based on my own experience walking the trails. I won’t go into a lot of detail about what you’ll see along the way. That’s for you to discover.

The trails can be divided into three basic groups: the trails near the river or canal in the northernmost part of the park, the trails in and around the Gold Mine Loop area in the central section of the park, and the Billy Goat Trail system, which extends for several miles along the river downstream from Great Falls.

The Northern Trails

Great Falls Overlook Trail

0.25 Miles – Easy

The park trail map description refers to this as the Olmstead Island Bridges, perhaps to avoid confusion with the Overlook Trail in the Gold Mine Loop area. It is the easiest and one of the shortest trails in the park, and one you shouldn’t miss. It consists of a series of boardwalks and bridges that lead from the canal towpath across Olmstead Island to the Great Falls Overlook. Here you will find the best view of the falls in the park.

The trail starts about a quarter mile down the towpath from Great Falls Tavern, so it’s about a 1-mile round trip to the overlook and back. I advise people who don’t want to go even that far to at least go out onto the short bridge right at the trailhead that crosses over an impressive torrent.

The Great Falls Overlook Trail is wheelchair accessible. No dogs or bicycles are allowed. You can lock your bike to a bike rack at the trailhead.

River Trail

1 Mile – Easy

If a flat walk through the woods beside a river sounds appealing, the River Trail is for you. A short walk from Great Falls Tavern, the trail enters the woods from the towpath just beyond the broad observation platform overlooking the river. It emerges back onto the towpath about a mile away, making for an easy 2-mile round trip, half on trail and half on towpath. Be aware that the low-lying trail can get mucky or impassable after a heavy rain or a flood.

The river here is as flat and placid as the trail. It backs up behind a low dam built to funnel water into the Washington Aqueduct intake beneath the observation platform. I’m told you can spot from the trail a couple of bald eagle nests in trees across the river. The upper end of the trail takes you past some of the widest sycamore tree trunks I have ever seen.

Ford Mine Trail

2.1 Miles (round trip) – Moderate

Traversing an area once mined for gold, the Ford Mine Trail begins and ends at the far lower corner of the parking lot and makes a long loop through the woods paralleling the canal. Whenever I infrequently walk this trail, I wonder why I don’t do it more often. It seems to be one of the park’s least visited trails, so it’s good for getting away from the crowd. And it’s a rather nice walk.

Eastern box turtle on the Ford Mine Trail.

The first third of the trail is mostly wide and level. Where the trail splits into a loop, the trail to the right climbs up and down some low hills and crosses several small streams, providing a bit of exercise. Once you reach the far end of the loop and turn back, the trail becomes less hilly and stays within sight of the canal for much of the way. At an easy pace, I walked the entire trail in about an hour.

The Gold Mine Loop Trails

The Gold Mine Loop area is bordered on one side by MacArthur Boulevard and on the other by Berma Road, a closed road built over the Washington Aqueduct conduit and now used as a trail. This largest wooded section of the park was once the site of Civil War earthworks and later of gold mines, which operated from the 1880s to the 1940s. There are few obvious remains of either, other than terrain that looks unnaturally disturbed. This is one of my favorite places to take a quiet walk in the woods.

Berma Road

1.5 Miles – Easy

Berma Road is a wide and flat trail that runs along the hillside on the “berm” side of the canal (opposite from the towpath) and offers nice views of the former river channel now known as Widewater. The road surface varies from fine gravel to stony to crumbling asphalt but is mostly smooth, with just a few short bumpy stretches if you’re on a bike.

Widewater in fall from Berma Road.

The south end begins at the park parking lot (restrooms here) opposite Old Anglers Inn on MacArthur Boulevard. The north end of Berma Road can be accessed via the stop gate bridge that crosses the canal a half mile from Great Falls Tavern. Berma Road continues a short way past the stop gate bridge. Where it dead-ends, there are nice views of the towpath below and the Potomac River gorge beyond.

If you park at Anglers (as it’s called on the park map), you can make a flat and easy 3-mile loop around the scenic Widewater area via Berma Road and the canal towpath. Starting at the other end at Great Falls Tavern adds another mile. This loop is one of my favorite walks in the park. Spur trails connect Berma Road with the adjacent Gold Mine Loop, creating even more loop hike variations.

Gold Mine Loop

1.6 Miles – Easy

The Gold Mine Loop is the heart of the trail system here. It makes for a pleasant, easy walk through open woodlands with lots of options for longer hikes. The trail is wide and mostly hardpacked dirt, with one stream crossing where you have to step from rock to rock.

View from the Gold Mine Loop trail.

All the trails that lead to or branch off from it are rated either easy or moderate, perhaps based on elevation change—you have to go uphill from Berma Road or the Great Falls Tavern area to reach the Gold Mine Loop. You need to watch your footing at few of the steeper and rockier spots on the spur trails, but they aren’t unusually challenging.

Side Trails to Anglers

If you start at Anglers and walk down Berma Road for a short distance, you’ll come to a fenced area containing equipment for the aqueduct. Three trails fan out from here and head uphill to the Gold Mine Loop: the Valley Trail (0.6 mi.), Anglers Spur (0.5 mi.), and Woodland Trail (0.7 mi.). I like to take the Valley Trail, which follows a small stream, and return via the Woodland Trail, which passes by those barely discernible Civil War earthworks.

Side Trails to MacArthur Boulevard

Several short trails branch off the eastern side of the loop and lead to MacArthur Boulevard: the Rockwood Spur (0.5 mi.), Falls Road Spur (0.2 mi.), and VFW Spur (0.1 mi.). These are mainly useful for accessing the loop from surrounding neighborhoods or the VFW Post.

Side Trails to Berma Road or the Canal

These trails are good for creating longer loops. I’ve hiked from Anglers to Great Falls Tavern via one route and returned via a completely different route many times. There are any number of variations you can take. A couple of spots can be a little confusing, especially where other unmarked paths intersect, so watch for trail signs and blazes and bring a map. You can’t really get lost, but you can end up on a different trail than you expected.

The Lock 16 Spur (0.3 mi.) leads directly from the Gold Mine Loop down to Berma Road.

The Gold Mine Spur (0.8 mi.) heads north and then west from the Gold Mine Loop to Great Falls Tavern. Several other trails connect with the Gold Mine Spur.

View from the Overlook Trail.

The Overlook Trail (0.7 mi.) heads west from the Gold Mine Spur and then turns north, passing a couple of nice overlooks of the Potomac River gorge. The short Overlook Spur (0.1 mi.) connects the Overlook Trail to Burma Road.

The Lock 19 Spur (0.3 mi.) starts at Lock 19, not far from Great Falls Tavern, and connects with both the Overlook Trail and the Gold Mine Spur.

There’s an interesting “hidden feature” along the Gold Mine Spur not labeled on the trail map. Walking from the Gold Mine Loop toward Great Falls Tavern, the spur trail takes a sharp left where an unmarked trail intersects from the right. From here the trail runs straight between two high embankments. Where those embankments recede, the trail continues onto a raised bed, which, you may notice, curves around through the woods back to itself in a teardrop shape. What you are walking on is the turnaround for a trolley that once connected Great Falls to nearby Bethesda in the early 20th century. The trolley tracks are gone, but this stretch of the Gold Mine Spur follows the old trolley route through the woods.

The Billy Goat Trail

The Billy Goat Trail consists of three unconnected linear trails—A, B, and C—that in total extend almost 5 miles along the Potomac River downstream from Great Falls. All are reached via the canal towpath. The Billy Goat Trail offers some of the most scenic hiking in the park.

Billy Goat C Trail

1.6 Miles – Easy

Access

Billy Goat C runs through the Carderock area south of Great Falls. Access to parking is via Clara Barton Parkway. To start at the upstream trailhead, park at the northernmost parking lot (restrooms here). The trailhead is a just up the towpath before you reach Mile 11. A short trail from the parking lot to the Carderock cliffs, popular for rock climbing, also leads to the Billy Goat Trail.

The downstream trailhead is at a kink in the towpath just below Mile 10. You can also reach the lower third of the trail from the parking lot near the picnic pavilion.

Hiking the Trail

When I last hiked Billy Goat C, I started at the upstream trailhead. A few yards into the woods at a wooden platform, the trail split. I didn’t see any blazes or signs, so I continued straight instead of turning left. This turned out to be the wrong way but a worthwhile detour. It takes you down to the river along the base of the cliffs, where you’ll often see climbers scaling the rock faces. The trail dead-ends where cliff and river meet.

Climbing cliff near the head of Billy Goat C.

Except for that initial point of uncertainty, the trail is easy to follow. It starts atop the cliffs and then descends toward river level where the cliffs recede. There are a few rocky spots, including one stream crossing where you need to mind your footing. But otherwise, it’s a pleasant, mostly packed-earth path through the woods. You can walk down to the river in some places. I saw groups of people walking around on the rock outcroppings close to shore.

Near the downstream end, the trail splits again, but here a trail marker points to the correct way—left toward the trailhead, a short distance uphill. I decided to follow the unmarked trail that keeps going straight to see where it went. It continued along the river before angling back up to the towpath at a culvert, about 4/10ths of a mile downstream from the Billy Goat trailhead. There’s nothing special about the unmarked trail to recommend it.

Billy Goat B Trail – Closed

1.4 Miles – Moderate

I hiked Billy Goat B in 2016. Since then, the Park Service closed the trail because of damage from floods and erosion. They are still determining how best to repair or reroute the trail through this ecologically sensitive area. Don’t expect it to reopen anytime soon.

Some people ignore the signs and hike the trail anyhow. I cannot endorse this. I don’t recall anything unique about this trail. It seemed much like Billy Goat C, except with a couple more rocky places to cross. There are lots of other good trails in the park. My advice: respect the Park Service directive and stay off.

Billy Goat A Trail

1.75 Miles – Strenuous

Billy Goat A is the only trail in the park rated as strenuous, and yet it’s also one of the most popular trails. It follows the rim of Mather Gorge and offers splendid views, before dipping down to a couple of small beaches on the river and traversing some low wetlands.

The trail attracts everyone from seasoned hikers to casual walkers woefully unprepared for it. If you want to hike the trail on a weekend or holiday in peak season, go early. It can get crowded. No pets are allowed, and bringing small children is discouraged.

Access

Billy Goat A begins about a half mile down the towpath from Great Falls Tavern, just before you reach the stop gate bridge over the canal. It emerges back onto the towpath at the lower end of Widewater, just below Mile 13. There is only one other access point, the Exit Trail at about the midway point.

During the pandemic, the Park Service made Billy Goat A one way, and it remains so. However, the Exit Trail is a two-way trail, which allows you to exit or enter Billy Goat A at roughly its midpoint and thereby hike just the upper or lower half.

The lower sections of the trail can flood, so when the river rises to a certain level, the Park Service closes Billy Goat A until the waters recede. If it has rained heavily recently, check online or call first to make sure the trail is open.

Safety and Preparedness

Billy Goat A is not unusually long or steep or technically challenging. But much of the trail involves going across or up, over, and down innumerable bedrock outcroppings and boulders. These rocky areas offer endless opportunities to take a wrong step or to slip and fall. Sand deposited by high waters makes some of the rocks close to the river slippery. The trail has some easy stretches that provide a welcome break, but many more where you have to watch almost every step you take. That can get tiring, which further increases your chances of a misstep.

Too many people underestimate how taxing this trail can be after a while, especially if they hike it unprepared, without proper footwear, or without enough water, especially on a blisteringly hot summer day. Too many people hobble out hurt or dehydrated. Others must be rescued.

Well-trained park volunteers called Billy Goat Trail stewards monitor the trail and offer assistance. They are a welcome and comforting presence. Don’t count on one to be around if you need help, but be grateful if there is.

So be prepared and be careful. Read and follow the trail safety recommendations listed on the park map.

Trail Blazes

Keep looking ahead for those blue trail blazes painted on trees and rocks that mark the best route. You can’t really get lost here, but you can make the hike harder for yourself if you stray from the marked trail. Bear Island, which the trail traverses, is a biologically important and sensitive area, so it’s important to stick to the trail for that reason too and not go bushwacking.

When I hiked the trail, I did manage to get off track slightly a couple of times because I couldn’t spot the next blaze. In one spot, I followed what I thought was the trail through tall grasses. “This can’t be right,” I thought, and it wasn’t. I soon found myself back on rock, spotted a blaze, and got back on track. But when I reached the river again, it was unexpectedly on my left. It took me a disoriented moment to realize that the river wasn’t going the wrong way, I was.

Mile Markers

Once you’re on the trail, it’s hard to tell exactly where you are or how far you’ve gone. The Park Service has installed three trail markers (shown on the map) to help you out.

TM-1 is about a third of the way from the trailhead. Up to this point, the going is fairly easy. But there’s a sign here warning of more strenuous hiking ahead. If you have any doubts about whether you want to continue, this is a good place to buck the one-way traffic and turn back.

TM-2 is a short distance past the Traverse, the one cliff you must ascend on the trail. It marks the trail’s approximate midpoint and is where the Exit Trail intersects, the only way off the trail until its downstream end.

TM-3 is just past a narrow wooden bridge (EZ Bridge on Google Maps) over a stream. This marks the approximate two-thirds point of the trail. Not far now.

The Traverse

Before you reach TM-2, you must scale the Traverse, a sloping climb up a 50-foot rock wall. Don’t let the photo of it in the visitor center scare you. It’s a mildly technical climb—you have to use your hands as well as your feet. But I didn’t find it overly difficult. It even seemed a little fun after hiking up and down so many boulders and outcrops.

Right near the top was one spot where I had to pause a moment to figure out where to put my foot next. The trail steward waiting at the top suggested I go to the right. I handed him my hiking pole, and a couple of carefully placed steps later, I hoisted myself up to the top. Not bad! Of course, I was wearing good hiking boots, there was not a line of hikers waiting behind me, and it wasn’t 90 degrees in the shade.

My Hike on Billy Goat A

Billy Goat A had long been the only trail in the park I’d never hiked. I finally decided to tackle it in early June 2023 under ideal conditions—on a lovely weekday morning with mild temperatures and low humidity. I had the trail almost to myself. I encountered only nine people: one guy, a pair of women, a mixed group of five, and a Billy Goat trail steward.

I came prepared. I wore my ankle-high hiking boots and a hat. I put on sunscreen. My waist pack carried two water bottles, a couple of snack bars, a small first aid kit, an ace bandage, and even a whistle. I’m not a kid anymore; I wasn’t taking any chances. I used one of my hiking poles, as I often do on a trail. It helped steady me in some places, but in others it just got in the way. In a few spots, I tossed it ahead of me and used my hands for support instead, which felt easier and safer.

I took my time. Everyone I met on the trail passed me by, except the one guy heading back in the opposite direction. I didn’t find the trail overly strenuous, but the repetitive clambering over rocks did get a little wearying after a while. My foot slipped only a couple of times, both toward the end of the hike on easier parts of the trail, perhaps because I was starting to get careless or tired.

Me atop the Traverse.

I left Great Falls Tavern for Billy Goat A at 9:00 a.m. I stopped often to take pictures and chatted with the trail steward for a while. I was back at the tavern by 11:40. I estimate that I walked a little less than 4 miles—about 1.75 miles or so on the trail and the rest on the towpath.

I was satisfied that I’d finally done Billy Goat A. But on the other hand, I didn’t feel that it was a trail I’d be eager to hike again anytime soon. An easier walk in the woods where I don’t have to watch my every step seems more to my liking these days.

But who knows?

David Romanowski, 2023

Park Websites

C&O Canal National Historical Park
Billy Goat Trail Information

Trail Map and Guide PDFs

Great Falls Trail Map
Great Falls Trail Descriptions

Related Posts

Gold Mines at Great Falls in Maryland
Walking the Gold Mine Loop

Great Falls: Maryland and Virginia

“The Great Falls are actually a series of cascades and rapids on a two-thirds of a mile stretch of the Potomac. The river drops about 76 feet over this distance. None of the individual falls exceeds a 20 foot drop.”

—Maryland Geological Survey

They may not rival Niagara Falls, but the Great Falls of the Potomac River are still quite a sight, especially when the river is at flood stage. First-time visitors are amazed to find such a treasure only 10 miles from Washington, D.C. Long-time visitors are just ever grateful that it’s here.

Both Maryland and Virginia share views of the falls at two different but complementary national parks. The park on the Virginia side is called Great Falls Park. The park on the Maryland side is part of the C&O Canal National Historical Park, which extends along the Potomac for over 180 miles. People commonly refer to this section of the park as Great Falls, Maryland.

Kayakers below one of the larger falls on the Virginia side.

If you stand at the Great Falls overlook on the Maryland side, you can easily see people at the overlooks on the Virginia side, less than 500 feet away. But to get from here to there, you have to drive south to I-495, cross the river on the American Legion Bridge, and then head back north on Georgetown Pike, about a 13-mile or half-hour drive.

It’s worth visiting both parks for their strikingly different views of Great Falls and for other features you can only find at one park or the other. So here’s a brief comparison of the two Great Falls parks.

Getting In

Both parks charge entrance fees ($20 per car, $10 for walk-ins or cyclists), good for seven days. The fee you pay at one park covers admission to the other as well. There’s no fee for people who walk or bike into the park on the Maryland side via the towpath or other trails. It’s possible to walk into the park on the Virginia side as well, but that park is not as readily accessible by trail.

Both parks sell various kinds of park passes at their entrance stations. However, the station in Maryland is often unmanned due to staffing shortages, and this tends to frustrate visitors hoping to buy a pass there. The entrance station in Virginia is more reliably staffed.

Both parks have huge parking areas, but they can fill up on busy days. On weekends and holidays, you will often have to wait in a long line of cars to get in.

Visitor Centers

The Maryland visitor center is in Great Falls Tavern, a historic building dating from 1831. It has an information desk and some graphic exhibit panels and low-tech, touchable exhibits that give a basic overview of the park and the canal. You used to be able to buy books, calendars, tee-shirts, and other items here, but that was discontinued during the pandemic and hasn’t returned yet. [Update: The sales area has reopened!]

The Virginia visitor center building probably dates from the 1960s. It’s bigger and more elaborate inside than Great Falls Tavern. As I recall, it has lots of interesting exhibits, a theater presentation, a shop, and an information desk. But as of this writing, it is closed for renovation.

Great Falls Tavern, Maryland.

Great Falls Park Visitor Center, Virginia.

Other Amenities

Neither park has much in the way of food service. You may find a food truck at the Maryland park on weekends, but the refreshment stand that was once there is closed. I don’t know of any food services on the Virginia side.

But you can certainly picnic! Here, the Virginia park excels. It has dozens of picnic tables spread across a broad area, some with a distant view of the falls. The Maryland park has only a few picnic tables, most in a small area tucked between the parking lot and the canal.

The C&O Canal National Historical Park is “trash free,” meaning you won’t even find a bottle of water for sale or a trash can to discard one in. You can obtain plastic bags here for packing out your trash. There are trash cans throughout the Virginia park.

Historic Structures

Maryland, of course, has the C&O Canal. A closely spaced series of six locks were built here in the early 1800s to route the canal around Great Falls. Four of those locks remain operational. This allows park staff to keep a section of the canal here watered, demonstrate lock operations, and provide rides on a replica canal boat. Presently, the canal has been drained for dredging and other maintenance work, so there are no boat rides for now. Other historic structures here include Great Falls Tavern and the remains of nearby lockhouses.

Great Falls in Maryland is also the starting point for the Washington Aqueduct, built in the mid-1800s to supply the city of Washington with water. It is still operational, and there are structures here relating to it as well. The surrounding woods were the site of several gold mines, although few identifiable traces of them remain.

Great Falls in Virginia has the remains of another, older canal: the Patowmack Canal. Before he became our first president, George Washington led an effort to improve navigation on the Potomac by building a series of five canals around the roughest stretches of the river. The most difficult and complex canal was the one built to skirt Great Falls. You can walk the length of it today and see the remains of some of its locks and other structures. But there is much less left of the Patowmack Canal than the C&O Canal.

Scenic Vistas

Virginia has the edge here, but Maryland offers some spectacular vistas as well. The best is from the Great Falls Overlook (below), a half-mile walk from Great Falls Tavern. A boardwalk trail leads from the canal towpath, over some rushing torrents, and across Olmstead Island to the overlook. When the Potomac is at flood stage, river waters pour beneath the boardwalk through several channels. If the river level gets too high, park rangers have to close the trail.

July 2020

March 2021

A little farther down the towpath past the overlook trail is an outstanding view of a looping side channel from a high escarpment known as Mary’s Wall. This too provides an impressive view during a major flood. The two pairs of pictures below were taken from the same stretch of the towpath above Mary’s Wall.

July 2020

July 2020

June 2018

June 2018

In Virginia you can walk to a series of overlooks just a short distance from the visitor center. Here you see the river and falls head-on, a spectacular sight. You can sometimes watch expert kayakers dropping down one of the falls here into the river below. Hiking trails lead to other views of the river and Mather Gorge downstream from the falls.

The two photos below were taken from those easy to access overlooks. You can see the Maryland overlook atop the cliff at the right edge of the June 2023 photo.

June 2023

June 2018

Trails

In Maryland, the C&O Canal towpath at Great Falls is part of an unbroken trail corridor that extends via the canal towpath from Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland, and then via the Great Allegheny Passage to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That’s hard to beat. You will often run across bicyclists here who have pedaled all the way from Pittsburgh or Cumberland.

The Maryland side has lots of other hiking trails of varying degrees of difficulty: in the woods through former gold mine areas, beside the river upstream from the falls, and along Mather Gorge via the rugged Billy Goat trail. The trails at Great Falls are part of a network that extends for several miles downstream to the Widewater and Carderock areas of the park. They offer almost limitless options for loop hikes of widely varying length and difficult.

I’m less familiar with the trail system on the Virginia side. I’ve often walked the easier trails that follow the river and the old canal. But there is also the rockier River Trail, which follows Mather Gorge, and other trails through the adjacent woods that follow ridge or stream. You can bike or ride a horse on some of the trails, but cycling isn’t as popular here as on the Maryland side. I can’t recall ever seeing a bicyclist here.

Wildlife

My best wildlife sighting at the Virginia park was a fox, way too acclimated to people, that approached me and Sue much too closely on a trail once. But admittedly, I haven’t spent as much time here as I have on the Maryland side.

Mather Gorge, downstream from Great Falls, from the Billy Goat Trail in Maryland.

I’ve had countless impressive wildlife sightings at or near Great Falls: herons, egrets, owls, eagles, snapping turtles and other turtles and snakes, deer, foxes, racoons, beavers, muskrats, otters. A rare sighting of a brilliantly colored male painted bunting attracted swarms of serious birders from around the region to the park in January 2021. You never know what you’ll see on a given day along the C&O Canal.

In Conclusion

Both parks are well worth visiting. Come to Virginia for the extraordinary views and to Maryland for the C&O Canal, but also take advantage of everything else these parks have to offer. I’ve visited both parks countless times over many decades, and I never tire of returning.

Park Websites

Great Falls Park

C&O Canal National Historical Park

Related Posts

A Trail Guide to Great Falls in Maryland

Searching for Little Falls

Welcome to Great Falls Tavern

A C&O Canal Gallery

Gold Mines at Great Falls in Maryland

Walking the Gold Mine Loop

David Romanowski, 2023

Searching for Little Falls

One day while volunteering at the C&O Canal visitor center at Great Falls, Maryland, a visitor asked an unusual question. “I want to walk to Little Falls,” he said. “Can you tell me the nearest place to it that I can park?”

I admitted that I wasn’t actually sure where Little Falls was. I thought it might be just upstream from Lock 6 on the canal, where a low dam funnels water from the Potomac River into Little Falls Pumping Station, which supplies water to Washington, D.C. There is a viewpoint there that Google Maps labels Little Falls Overlook. Was that Little Falls?

I had long wondered about this. The Bethesda neighborhood where I live is bordered by Little Falls Drive and Little Falls Branch (a stream) on one side and Little Falls Parkway on the other. I frequently visit Little Falls Library. Part of the Capital Crescent Trail runs through Little Falls Stream Valley Park. There’s a Little Falls water gauge at the pumping station that records the river level. Little Falls seems like a big deal around here.

The Great Falls of the Potomac are a popular local attraction. But where are the Little Falls of the Potomac?

Not Where I Thought

While I was noodling around on Google Maps later trying to figure it out, the answer literally appeared out of nowhere. While I was zooming in and out, the words “Little Falls” suddenly popped up in a narrow stretch of the river about a mile downstream from the Little Falls Pumping Station and just upstream from Chain Bridge—less than 2,000 feet from the bridge. Little Falls is located precisely where the northwest corner of the District of Columbia meets the state borders of Maryland and Virginia.

I wondered if the falls could be seen from Chain Bridge. The next time I drove across it from Maryland to Virginia, I kept stealing glances to my right. I did catch a glimpse of what looked like rapids right about where I thought Little Falls should be. Who knew?

A Google Earth view of the Little Falls of the Potomac. A rectangular concrete platform on the lower shore is visible at the center of the image.

Little Falls, Big Barrier

Just as the Great Falls of the Potomac are not a single waterfall like Niagara, but more of a Class 5+ rapids, the Little Falls of the Potomac are not a real waterfall either. But like Great Falls, they presented an impassable barrier to river navigation when the region was being settled.

In the 1780s, George Washington began promoting the idea of developing the Potomac as a transportation route between the eastern seaboard and the western territories. In 1785, four years before he became our first president of the United States, Washington became the first president of the Patowmack Company, whose goal was to make the Potomac River navigable.

This was no small feat. It required clearing out sandbars and rubble, blasting channels in some shallow areas, and constructing a series of five canals to skirt the most problematic stretches of the river. The most imposing of those obstacles was Great Falls. But the canal builders first had to bypass Little Falls. (They also built a canal at Seneca Falls across from Seneca Creek and two other canals near Harpers Ferry.)

They built the Great Falls canal on the Virginia side of the river. You can see what remains of it in Great Falls Park. They chose to build the Little Falls canal on the Maryland side. It ran for more than two miles, from around what’s now Fletcher’s Boathouse to where Lock 5 is on the C&O Canal.

No obvious traces of it remain. The canal bed was used for the C&O Canal when construction on that began in 1828. The remains of its three stone locks were later destroyed during the building of the B&O Railroad’s Georgetown Branch line, which paralleled the C&O for a few miles. In the 1990s, the abandoned rail line was converted into the Capital Crescent Trail.

So when you walk or bike the C&O Canal towpath between Fletcher’s Boathouse and Lock 5, you are following the former course of the Little Falls canal.

Trekking to Little Falls

I wondered if there was a reasonably easy way to reach Little Falls. And so, on a rather hot day at the start of June, I decided to find out.

Before the Capital Crescent Trail was completed, I used to commute by bicycle to the National Mall via the canal towpath from Lock 5. I remember that just downstream from Lock 5 was a concrete road that headed straight toward the river, some distance away. I biked down it once out of curiosity. It ended at a concrete platform beside the narrow river channel.

I consulted my old copy of Thomas F. Hahn’s Towpath Guide to the C&O Canal, the first complete guide to the canal and a highly detailed and invaluable resource. He had this to say about that feature at Mile 4.54:

“Unused Dalecarlia hydroelectric plant [a building alongside Clara Barton Parkway] and culvert under the canal with deeply-cut outflow in a straight line to the river 300 yds. away. This area of the river is being utilized by the Army Corps of Engineers for a supplemental source of water from the tidal estuary of the Potomac River (water coming up river by tidal action rather than down river by gravity). The concept is fine, but the location in a particularly scenic part of the river in view from Chain Bridge is poor.”

The project was later abandoned, and whatever was built there along the river was removed. All that remains are the concrete road and the platform. They appeared to me to be the best way to get close to Little Falls.

I drove to the Brookmont neighborhood, parked, and took the steep path down to the footbridge that crosses Clara Barton Parkway and brings you to Lock 5 (also Mile 5 on the canal). From there I walked the towpath downstream toward the abandoned concrete road.

The walking route to the concrete platform below Little Falls. A–Brookmont. B–Concrete platform. C–Chain Bridge. D–Little Falls.

About a quarter mile down the towpath from Lock 5, I reached a large culvert built to allow Little Falls Branch to pass beneath the canal. There are narrow foot trails leading into the woods on either side of it. I decided to take the one heading in the direction I was going to see if it might lead toward Little Falls. It did not. It paralleled the towpath and led to the concrete road a short distance away.

I walked down the road to the platform by the river. The walking distance from Brookmont to here was about 0.8 miles. I ducked under a large tree that had fallen across the platform and walked to the wall overlooking the river. Downstream was Chain Bridge, less than half a mile away. Bushes obscured the upstream view, so I carefully climbed down some boulders to the edge of the river. There, I finally got my first view of Little Falls.

It was a distant view for sure. But I could see several people there, probably fishing, so there had to be some way to reach the falls. I climbed back up to the platform. Someone had parked a bicycle under some bushes nearby. I walked around the area looking for an obvious trail but couldn’t find one. I decided I didn’t want to go bushwacking over rocks and through poison ivy and grasses possibly bearing ticks.

This was as close to Little Falls as I was willing to go.

On my return walk, I found traces of paths leading down to Little Falls Branch, but it looked like you’d have to hop from rock to rock to follow the stream to the river. Maybe that’s what the fishermen do. I followed another trail through the woods that led back to Lock 5, but I found no paths leading from it toward Little Falls.

Curiosity Satisfied

It looks to me that there’s no obvious way to reach Little Falls without following Little Falls Branch or picking your way over the rocky terrain. This clearly doesn’t deter people who want to fish there. But I’m not as sure footed or foolhardy as I once was, so I think I’ll pass.

It would have been interesting to see what Little Falls looked like before various dams were built across the Potomac during the 1800s to divert water toward treatment plants and into the C&O Canal. The falls probably looked more impressive than they do now.

During major floods, the Potomac completely overwhelms Little Falls and much of the broad stretch of rocky and wooded terrain that extends between the falls and the towpath. From Chain Bridge, that’s quite a sight.

So now I can finally tell curious visitors where the Little Falls of the Potomac are and how to reach them—one more thing I’ve learned through my experience as a C&O Canal park volunteer.

David Romanowski, 2023

Welcome to Great Falls Tavern

Many who enter this building dearly wish it was still a tavern. They’ve hiked the notorious “A” section of the nearby Billy Goat Trail or biked the entire C&O Canal towpath from Cumberland, Maryland, 170 miles away. A few hardy souls have walked from Cumberland, carrying a heavy backpack and camping at the primitive sites spaced about every five miles or so along the canal.

They arrive here tired and sweaty, and I wish I could pour them an ale or tingle their tongues with a glass of soda if they prefer. But alas, I cannot even offer them a bottle of water or a place to dump their trash. The C&O Canal National Historical Park is a “carry-it-in / carry-it-out” park. I can only offer a plastic trash bag. Sorry.

But most who come through the door are here just for a walk on the towpath or up the short boardwalk trail to the overlook to see the Great Falls of the Potomac River. They’ve stepped into the tavern to pick up a park or trail map, explore the exhibits, or check out what’s inside this odd-looking historic building.

Welcome to Great Falls Tavern.

A Little History

The building now generally referred to as Great Falls Tavern actually comprises three separate but attached structures. Shortly after ground was broken for the C&O Canal in 1828, a lockhouse for the yet-to-be built lock was constructed here. The lockkeeper soon convinced the canal company to add a tavern to offer food, drink, and lodging, as Great Falls was already a popular local attraction.

In 1830–31, a three-story tavern was added onto the north end of the lockhouse. It had a barroom and ballroom on the main floor, individual and dormitory rooms on the second floor, and a “honeymoon suite” on the third floor. Also, the roof was raised on the original lockhouse and a smaller two-story addition built onto its south end, for use by the lockkeeper and his family. The tavern was named Crommelin House, in honor of Dutch investors in the canal.

A front view of Great Falls Tavern. The tavern opened to the public in 1831.

The tavern underwent many changes in use over the years. In 1849, as the canal was nearing completion, the canal company decided to forbid the sale of alcohol on its property and closed the tavern operation. For years, the main floor was leased as a grocery store, while the upstairs served as a hotel. When the hotel and grocery businesses closed in the early 1900s, the former tavern was leased to a private club.

After a devastating flood finally ended canal operations in 1924, the building reverted to a tavern again for a while. Then the Park Service leased it as a refreshment stand and boat concession. Demolition was considered after a structural fire damaged the building in 1948, but fortunately the tavern was restored for use as a museum instead. Now part of the C&O Canal National Historical Park, it houses a visitor center on the ground floor and offices and other rooms for park staff upstairs.

This tactile model shows the three sections: the original lockhouse (center). the tavern (right), and the rear addition (left).

The building’s odd structural amalgamation makes getting around interesting. To go from one room to another on the ground level, you have to go outside, as none of the three sections of the building connect to one another by doors. To go upstairs, you have to use an external stairway. The three sections of the building don’t directly connect on the second floor either. You have to use the outdoor landing to go from room to room. I don’t even know how to reach the third floor of the tavern, the former “honeymoon suite.” Climb a ladder? Rappel up a wall to a window? Who knows what’s up there now.

Open the Door and Come on In

A necessary clarification: Great Falls Tavern is the visitor center for this section of the C&O Canal National Historical Park in Maryland. Great Falls Park, also a national park site, is right across the river in Virginia and has its own visitor center (currently being renovated). So when you talk about going to Great Falls, you have to clarify which side of the river you mean.

Anyhow, step inside. You’ll find yourself in a large room that certainly looks historic, with its brick floor, plaster walls, and twin fireplaces. In the center is the information desk, with its racks of brochures and a helpful park service volunteer standing by to assist you. The rest of the space contains various exhibits and objects. You’re pretty much free to put your hands on any of them, even the musical instruments an interpretive ranger recently put out. So strum away.

This visitor information desk. The Plexiglas barriers atop the counter and their white pointy mounts have been removed.

You can read about the history of the canal and how it was designed and built, examine models of a lock and a canal boat, enjoy touchable and even sniffable items, and watch the silent 12-minute video “Down the Old Potomac,” produced by Thomas Edison’s company in 1917, showing a trip down the canal by boat.

Unfortunately, what you won’t see are shelves and racks of anything for sale—guidebooks, calendars, postcards, tee-shirts, park passports, and so on—that you’d expect to find here. The retail operation, run by the park’s cooperating association, Eastern National, closed along with the visitor center during the covid pandemic. It hasn’t yet returned. [Update: It has reopened!]

Step outside through the back doors and you’ll find another room in the central part of the building, the oldest section that used to be the lockhouse. Now it contains hands-on activities for kids that continually change. A third room on the ground level, which has a video presentation on the park, is currently closed. [Update: It has reopened!]

Working Here as a Volunteer

The tavern is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday. It is usually staffed by one or more volunteers or by a park ranger if a volunteer isn’t available. The day is divided into two shifts: 9:00 to 12:30 and 12:30 to 4:00. Since February 2023, I’ve been working the Wednesday afternoon shift.

Wednesdays are far less busy in the park than weekends and holidays, so the visitor-greeting business in the tavern can get a little slow. (I always bring something to read for when I’m hanging around in there alone.) But there’s usually an intermittent trickle of people and an occasional surge. Recently, a large elementary school group flooded the place for what seemed like half an hour. I could barely hear myself think. Silence and solitude were a relief after that.

I worked as a visitor center volunteer for several years at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. There I was usually busier and had many more visitor contacts on a given day. But my interactions with visitors at the tavern, while fewer in number, are generally much more interesting and gratifying. While many people come in just to pick up a map or browse the exhibits and prefer to be left alone, many others ask interesting questions or chat with me about the park, their memories of it, or their appreciation for it.

If I don’t know the answer to a visitor question or I’m a little unsure about it, I make a point to find out later. This broadens my knowledge of the park and makes me better able to answer the same question again, as it will surely come up. One day I was asked twice about Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas and his role in getting the park established. I went home and reread the passages about him in my guidebooks.

“I Have a Question”

What people most often ask about:

Kids like to pet and climb on the tiny mule.

• Why is there no water in the canal? There’s a major canal maintenance project going on involving dredging a section of the canal bed and clearing debris and obstacles from it in several other areas. The canal had to be drained for this purpose.
• Will you ever have mule-pulled canal boat rides again? Yes, once the maintenance project is done and the canal can be rewatered. The boat is ready, and you may see rangers taking the mules for a walk on the towpath.
• Do you sell national parks passes here? They are sold at the entrance station—when it is staffed. Often on weekdays it is not because of lack of personnel. You can also buy them at Great Falls Park in Virginia.
• If there’s no one at the entrance station, do I have to pay park admission? You can drive (or bike or walk) right in without paying (the gate will go up). You can pay online; there’s a QR code posted in the tavern that you can scan to reach the website. But it’s on the honor system, so it’s up to you. Every paid admission helps the park.
• Do you have date stamps for Park Passport books? Yes, we have several: for the park, the Billy Goat Trail, and several of the lockhouses you can stay in via the C&O Canal Trust’s Canal Quarters program.
• Do you have any Junior Ranger activity booklets? Yes, they are quite popular, and we hand out Junior Ranger badges when your child completes the activities. One of our park rangers performed a Junior Ranger swearing-in ceremony for the entire school group that overran the visitor center that one day.

Other interesting questions:

• Were slaves used to build the canal? No. Immigrant laborers from Europe, mainly from Ireland and Germany, made up most of the workforce. Several people have asked about this.
• Was George Washington involved in building the canal? No, but he founded a company in 1784 to build a series of shorter canals to skirt several unnavigable stretches of the Potomac. In Great Falls Park in Virginia, you can see the remains of one of those early canals built to bypass Great Falls.
• How does water get into the canal? Via dams and inlet locks that divert water into the canal from the Potomac. The inlet lock at Violettes Lock (Mile 22) waters the canal from there to Great Falls (Mile 14) and on down to Lock 5 (Mile 5). The inlet lock at Lock 5 waters the canal the rest of the way to Georgetown.
• Where can I park to get to Little Falls? Yes, there is a “Little Falls” downriver from Great Falls. I had to consult Google Maps to find it. It’s just upriver from Chain Bridge (I think you can see it from there). You can park in several places nearby within walking distance, but it doesn’t appear to be easily accessible. One of these days, I’ll go out and see if I can find a trail to it from the towpath. Incidentally, this was among the stretches of river bypassed by one of those 18th-century canals.
• Are there bears in the park? Not that I know of, at least in the Great Falls area. But bears have been spotted on rare occasions in local suburban neighborhoods even closer to Washington.
• What about poisonous snakes? Yes, copperheads, which can sometimes be seen on the towpath. There are many other common nonpoisonous snakes too.
• Does the tavern ever get flooded? On rare occasions when the river level is extraordinarily high, floodwaters can reach the tavern. In that event, park rangers stack sandbags around the building. I have videos clips on my cellphone of two major floods in 2018 that I took from both sides of the river. I’ve shown them to especially interested visitors.

Come Visit!

One of these days, I’ll write a post comparing the parks on both sides of the river at Great Falls, as they offer different but complementary experiences. But this is it for now. As I mentioned, I volunteer at the tavern every Wednesday afternoon unless I’m traveling. Stop by and say hello!

David Romanowski, 2023