Tag: Holy Week 2026

The Maryland side of the Potomac River is pretty much all national park land. A hiking/biking towpath runs the whole way along the C&O canal, with points of interest dotted throughout, usually at the site of a canal lock. Needless to say I didn’t come close to doing the area justice in the past several weeks, but I got in a few.

Riley’s Lock

Furthest upriver I visited was Riley’s Lock/Lock 24, off River Road, in mid-March. It was a record high 80 degree day, it was furiously windy, and we were under a tornado watch, but even with a looming storm there were plenty of people here. This is where Seneca Creek reaches the river.

Where it meets the river, an old aqueduct serves as a bridge over it to connect the towpath.

Lockhouse.

History.

And, of course, the Potomac River in the late afternoon.

With a looming storm, probably not the best idea to stay too long, but nonetheless I crossed the aqueduct and followed the towpath a short way.
Continue reading “Potomac River – Spring 2026”

There’s Rock Creek Park as in the national park that’s in DC, and there’s Rock Creek Regional Park as in the extension of that park north into Maryland. The Maryland one consists of a ton of smaller trails and park areas along the Rock Creek Trail, as well as two parks with two lakes right by each other divided by Avery Road.

Lake Frank/Meadowside

I checked out Lake Frank on a Saturday morning in February, from the trailhead just off Avery Road. I’ve been to Meadowside many times before but hadn’t come around the lake this way.

Ah, two ways to go along the same path. Must mean there is a way to go all the way around the lake then. I had remembered it being more complicated than that in the past when I had considered doing so, but maybe they blazed new trails? Anyway, I turned right here.

Now up out of the woods and atop this dam path.

Wow, look at that frozen lake.

Coming off the dam the path was snowier but still paved and wide. For a little while, two people walking two dogs weren’t far behind me and I could hear their conversation. Seemed a mother and adult son, and she was speaking Russian and he was speaking English. Eventually they turned away along a path toward a nearby neighborhood.

Where that path met this path was a sign for the park.

Oh, the water in Rock Creek parkland is to be avoided? Shocker!

Continue reading “Rock Creek – Spring 2026”

Sitting in northern Montgomery County, MD, separating Germantown and Gaithersburg, is Seneca Creek State Park.

It has trails and streams pretty much throughout the northwest portion of the county, following the eponymous creek and its various branches, though the main park is off Clopper Road, at the center of which is Clopper Lake. In December, Winter Lights is held there, where you drive through the main park and look at a bunch of cool Christmas light displays. Which means in 2020, since we all had to be social distancing and for this thing you just stay in your car, it sold way the hell out fast, as it was about the only Christmas display that wasn’t canceled that year.

Anyway, I visited it quite a bit over the past few weeks.

I even started with it, in a brief and brisk visit to a short trail just past the entrance one afternoon.

Mud and snow make it kind of slick.

Didn’t have time to go much further. But I was back a couple days later way across the park, at the Mink Hollow Trail.

Continue reading “Seneca Creek – Spring 2026”

There’s no shortage of green spaces in Montgomery County, MD. Lots of parks around, big and small, county or state or federal, for hiking, being near water, just plain being somewhere with lots of squirrels, geese, and deer. Over the past several weeks, as the season slowly changed, I visited many of them.

One of them, one I have a much longer history with, is Black Hill Regional Park in Boyds. Whether it was walking my dogs on some of the trails back in the 1990s, or looking for a sunset-soaked location for a nice after work hike.

First place I went was one I hadn’t checked out before, outside of the main area of the park. One day in late February, still frigid and plenty of crunchy snow all around, the still-early sunset was fast approaching, so I figured this roadside spot by Little Seneca Lake, across it from the main park area, would work well. Despite the, again, frigid temperatures and crunchy snow and looming sunset, a couple other cars pulled into the small lot around the same time I did, myself the third one. One took a picture of the lake and left. Another wandered down to the shore. I did the same at another lakeside spot away from them.

Oh, by the way, this was the lake.

Frozen over from the deep freeze we’ve had recently. You can see something walked across!

Continue reading “Black Hill – Spring 2026”