Potomac Heritage Trail

I saw two suns on this morning’s hike, the orange ball in the sky and its reflection in the Potomac. We’d come a mile downriver when I looked east and shared that thought with my hiking companion. He agreed: we were two sons.

Around that time I heard a rustle in the brush by the shoreline and a splash resound on the water, as if an enormous stone had been hurled in. My immediate reaction was terror.

I turned my eyes up the slope toward the ridge to see who might have thrown the object over our heads, a shot across the bow, a warning to trespassers. It felt dangerous, an aggression not out of character with someone who might call the river home, one of the many people living in tents near this city.

Turning back to the river, I spotted the creature who indeed called this place home, a beaver, his narrow snout pushing along the surface. The V of his wake trailed behind and in a few yards he slapped the water hard with his mighty tail and disappeared, emerging upstream in the opposite direction. He’d done a flip turn, sounding like a rock hitting the water.

A few more beavers snouted along in the middle of the river where kayakers, scull rowers, and fishermen plied the water.

We stopped for breakfast on a rock beside a rope swing, musing aloud about swingers throwing themselves from such a height into the water. The tree holding the rope was nailed fast with steps up which someone might climb to check the fastening. This seemed an unsafe recreation.

Two hikers and their dog passed by and we continued on to the beach where last year on a shorter version of this eleven mile hike we found a catfish head in a fire pit. Catfish Head Beach, we named the spot.

Later we saw a mauled deer carcass, a young male with stumps where antlers never had a chance to grow, then emerged from the woody part of the Potomac Heritage Trail along the George Washington Parkway and under the Key Bridge to the parking lot opposite Roosevelt Island.

Temps at 10:30 were near seventy and perfect.

We toured the island, circumnavigating about a mile and a half, then crossed back over the bridge heading toward home. A young father and his toddler son trotted past us, we thought for the portapotties, but they continued on to their car.

Our route led over the Key Bridge, the spires of Georgetown rising in the distance, and we followed the C&O canal towpath, hiking home in about half the time it took us to reach the island. Along the way we spotted a massive, balloon-shaped wasp nest hanging from a tree, a blue heron, and two fishermen dropping their lines into this frequently dry creek bed.

I told my son I’d only fish that water to feed my enemies. In response, he conjectured that the animals around here thought they’d seen a funny-looking animal with grey hair, glasses, and a blue shirt walking through their environs. At that point, we stopped talking.

Our hike ended across the Chain Bridge back into Virginia and a short drive home for lunch and everything else the day held for us.

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