Walk 8: Towpath, The Holy Fathers, the Stoned Tree, and Great Blue Herons

Every so often, I come under the  the spell of  purple prose and start spouting off nonsense about how dogs walks are really "pilgrimages to nature." It's a load of bull.

Seminarians on their 50 mile pilgrimage to the basilica. 

Well, it's not bull to some people. This morning I met about 30 seminarians who were doing a 50 mile trek along the C&O Canal. I stopped to chat with one of the students and asked, "Where are you from?" After he replied Lincoln, I thought for a moment that only Lincoln I knew was Lincoln, Nebraska. After he confirmed we were both talking about the same Lincoln, I noted it was a lot more than 50 miles away from DC. He agreed and then fell silent.

Of course, I overlooked this bit and jumped to the next obvious question: "Where are you going?" He replied, "I don't know. It is a basilica. I've never been there." Indeed. The conversation was wonderfully vague but full of faith, and overall, he was a pleasant guy. He smiled a lot. No matter. Whichever basilica it was, they were a lot closer to it than when they started 50 miles ago because at that point on the towpath, we were a hop, skip and jump away from the Maryland-DC line although I don't know if Seminarians do that sort of thing.

Weekends are busy days on the towpath and the walk between miles 6.5 and 4.5 is busier than most. There's is a lot crammed into those two miles. At Lock 6, which is confusingly placed at mile post 5, there is a great alternative route called the Lock 6 Trail. This takes you down to a small channel of the Potomac with fast water and kayaking gates set up.

 Sports people, being what they are, decided that shooting rapids was just too easy. So they hang two poles in the white water and target shoot through them. The different colors of the poles tell the boater whether they must make a right turn, left turn, or go through backwards. Loki would have liked to have dived into the water here, but with the currents strong right up to the shore, the most he was willing to do was wade around in a few inches.

Kayakers at work making something easy more difficult.

Of course, the kayakers have to get to to this channel, so in addition to Holy Fathers trudging along, Loki and I passed several people lugging their boats on their shoulders. No points for comments about huge bananas on their backs.

A Kayaker heads to the Lock 6 Trail.

But this section of the Potomac is also, apparently, a very good fishing spot as well. So that contingent is on the move as well as the bikers and hikers and dog walkers.

This place can get sort of crowded, you know.












And naturally, it was inevitable that some one would pass by with a pair of Border Collies with the identical markings as Loki. I was rejoining the towpath from the Lock 6 Trail and called out "Hello." The owner and the dogs were well matched because they never missed a beat and kept right on running. Never interrupt a Border Collie on his work mission. Of for that matter, their owner.

Border Collies and their owner on a mission.






The best part of the walk comes about mile 4.5 where an unmarked concrete road leads down to the Little Falls run. A quarter of a mile from the towpath lies a concrete overlook of the falls and this is where you find all the fishermen, both bird and man. The banks of the Little Falls Chute is lined with men with fishing poles and Great Blue Herons. I'm not sure why this is one of the best spots on the river to catch fish, but they sure were pulling in the fish.

The Great Blue Heron waits by a small waterfall for its prey.

I glanced directly across the river and saw at least 6 Herons all clustered together. Every so often, one of them would take off and circle around before coming down to a new spot to hunt.

A circling Great Blue Heron.















While Loki wasn't willing to do more than wade in an inch or two of water on the feeder channel, he was having none of Little Falls. I walked along the rocks to the edge of the river but he hung back ten or fifteen feet as if to say the view from their was just fine with him.

All of which shows Loki has a fair amount of common sense and perhaps a bit more than some of the fishermen who wade out to some of the rocks. Every year, a few of the drown.   


Little Falls











But course, Loki was more than willing to go into the placid waters of the canal even if I wasn't going to let him off the leash. Instead, he had to watch in frustration as several large carp hovered tantalizingly close to snapping distance.

Well, I don't know for a fact Loki would try to catch one of the fish. Probably he'd just swim around in circles until I got the point and threw a tennis ball for him.


Loki sizes up the sizeable Carp.

What with the the Holy Fathers and all the others on the move this morning, it was a day for strange sights. But none was more strange than the stoned tree, I found. All along the banks of the Potomac, the rocks have perfectly round holes drilled into them. During floods, this divots fill with rocks and the rushing water swirls them around causing them to act like a drill bit if you have a several million years to wait.

The Stoned Tree 

One of these pot holes appears to have been sheared off near the top and a seed grew towards the sunlight in the hole in the rock. Well, as they say, it takes all types.


Practical information: Take the Cabin John entrance to the Clara Barton Parkway and head towards DC. Pass the parking lot for Lock 7 and use the immediate next parking lot on the right. The parking lot is, unfortunately, unmarked but it comes right after a pedestrian foot bridge. A path leads down to mile 6.5 on the towpath. Walk to mile 4.5 for the Little Falls overlook. Alternative trails are Lock 6 Trail. One way is 2 miles. Path is flat, crushed gravel. Alternative path is plain old dirt, no maintenance.