This weekend, I visited Great Falls Park in McLean, Virginia for the fourth time in one year. I know, my Great Falls love is starting to border on obsession, but I can’t help it when I live roughly twenty-five minutes away from one of the most pristine natural areas in the entire Washington, D.C. area. I’m always surprised when I learn how few people, locals and tourists alike, know about this splendid national park that makes for a wonderful day trip from the nation’s capital.
I visited Great Falls Park twice last winter and once during May, but I’ve never had the opportunity to see the falls blanketed in snow. If you live in the U.S. and own a television/have access to the internet, then you must have heard how a blizzard plowed through D.C. on January 23. The uproar from the capital seemed like the apocalypse, not a snowstorm, was on the horizon. As the mid-Atlantic goes, however, the snow rapidly melted, thanks to a few days following the storm that neared fifty degrees Fahrenheit. When Kevin and I headed to the airport on the morning of January 31 to pick up our rental car for the day, we passed by a just few snowbanks melting onto the street and assumed much of the snow at the park would similarly have melted.
Obviously, we were wrong. I know I’m sharing more than enough shots of the falls, but can you blame me? They look spectacular under a layer of snow and the bright blue sky – another pleasing element missing from two of our three prior visits.
I love the small slices of ice floating at the base of the falls in the above photograph. I’m a summer girl, through and through, but I do admit that winter can occasionally be quite lovely. The scene at Great Falls Park during our visit looked like something out of a (non-grim) fairy tale, and reaffirmed the park as my favorite spot in the D.C. region. It’s slightly off-putting how these jagged rocks and untamed falls are less than a half-hour’s drive from the bustle of downtown, isn’t it?
After thoroughly enjoying each of the park’s three, accessible Great Falls overlooks, Kevin and I attempted to complete a short hike. While most of the snow accumulated during the blizzard had melted off the falls, the tree-covered trails still had roughly one foot of snow on top of them. We chose one of the park’s flattest trails, but we still wound up trudging, not hiking. Even so, the views afforded by the hike were wonderful – despite the fact that my non-hiking-approved snow boots were giving me a blister per minute.
As we hiked, Kevin and I kept repeating the same sentiment over and over: “Wow, this so beautiful!”
“I know,” the other would respond, reverently. John Muir would have been proud.
