Seneca Tract

A neighbor recently told me about a secret, or rather not-so-well-known, hiking area near here.  It is called the Seneca Tract, and while it is owned by the NVRPA, it's not an actual park.  The Potomac Heritage Trail goes through the area though, and there extensions to the trails that loop around all over.  Each segment is about a mile or, and I think you can actually do a large loop of about 5 miles.  I can't find a good map of the trails online, but there's one posted at the parking area.  To get there, from 7, turn on to Georgetown Pike and make an immediate left.  The parking is at the end of the road.  If you keep walking on the road past the fence and take the gravel path off to the right, you eventually reach spots where a short off-shoot trail takes you to the water.  There are some users of the trail, but nothing like what you see at Great Falls.  I let Millie run around off-leash w/o worrying too much about getting in trouble.  The water levels at the river were low, and not too fast flowing.  Millie had lots of fun splashing around in it.

On some maps I see there is supposed to be a "Seneca Falls", but I haven't found a spot where you could actually see it.  I am guessing it's a much less impressive version of Great Falls, but I'd like to see it.  If anyone finds a spot to view it please let me know.

Next time I think I will try hiking from here to Algonkian and back....

Green marker on the tree indicates this particular trail is part of the Potomac Heritage Trail.

Rocks Aren't For Dogs

On way to Wolf Rock... we didn't quite get to it because of that crevice behind Millie.

The weather surprising got a little cooler these last couple weekends so I finally managed to get out on some short hikes with Millie.  I tend to go to Riverbend and Great Falls a lot since it is close, and much nicer than Balls Bluff Regional Park in Leesburg.  On Sunday though, I decided to schlep out a little further to Catoctin Mountain.  I had a lot to do in the afternoon (tax free shopping weekend), so I decided on a short hike - the Wolf Rock/Chimney Rock loop.  The hike was quite nice - the trails were wide so I didn't have to worry about ticks, and there were also no mud puddles or dirty rivers for Millie to jump into.  After a little while, I was starting to look forward to coming across the first "rock".  Typically when a spot is something-"rock", it is just that.  A large rock outcropping or formation that provides an interesting change in view from the woods.  Most that I've come across often are great view points for looking out over the vista.  The unfortunate thing I now realize though is that these rocks really aren't suitable for hiking on with your dog.  The "Deep Crevices" sign was the first hint of uh-oh on this hike.  Getting across the rocks required a little bit of rock scrambling.  Even if your Millie managed to get onto a large rock, I didn't want her jumping from it (think fractures & chips) so I lifted her down.  Then there are these crevices that Millie could end up in with one misstep.  There was a big one near Wolf Rock that looked like a bottomless abyss.  I wasn't going to start agility training with Millie now, and I didn't really have time to mess around looking for a safe passage around it to continue to the actual Wolf Rock, so we headed back to the trail and kept on.  Unfortunately Chimney Rock area wasn't much better.  This was also a popular spot with many people hanging out on top of the rocks, thereby somewhat ruining what would be an awesome view otherwise.  I stayed for a minute to enjoy what view I could around all the people, and then kept on.  A bummer about the rocks, but it was a good hike nonetheless.  Next time I'll keep my expectations of "rocks" a little low.

Chimney Rock