A Hiker's Guide to the Potomac Heritage Trail

Most of us are accustomed to thinking of trails as unbroken, continuous pathways from one place to another. Perhaps one day we will experience the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail in this way.

But even then, how many of us, in any given year, will lace up our boots and walk 770 miles of trails and roadsides? Some intrepid hikers will, but others will want to explore the Trail corridor in a more leisurely manner.

The Potomac River already provides a continuous thread over much of the corridor's length. Just as early Americans saw the Trail corridor as a passage connecting the Chesapeake Bay with lands beyond the Allegheny Mountains, today we use some of the same routes as pathways to discovery.

Depending on your interests, the Trail corridor can reveal the stories of American roots music, industrial history, natural history, the Nation's outdoor-recreation heritage, military history, and more. You don't have to cover every inch of the Trail corridor to experience its richness. But you can, by using this guide.

Trail Description
The Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail (PHT) is an evolving, 770-mile network of locally-managed trails and routes embracing both sides of the Potomac from the mouth of the river at the Chesapeake Bay to the Allegheny Highlands in the upper Ohio River basin. Trails in the Maryland/D.C./Pennsylvania segments of the Trail corridor make it possible to hike 375 miles from Washington, D.C., to Seward, Pennsylvania — all on trails and sidewalks. South of Washington, D.C., there are many places that offer superb hiking, with more opportunities on the horizon.

On the Virginia side of the Potomac River, local PHT advocates are bringing into focus a continuous footpath between Locust Park in southern Prince William County and Whites Ferry near Leesburg, Virginia, in Loudoun County — a distance of about a hundred miles. Hikers will be able to cross the Potomac on the ferry and either con tinue north on the C&O Canal Towpath or head south toward Georgetown to complete a loop.

South of Prince William, in the area of Fredericksburg and in Virginia's historic Northern Neck, hiking opportunities in PHT corridor are plentiful. To complement such adventures, guides for bicycling and paddling routes entice further exploration of the Potomac and its streams and landscapes.

This first-edition of a hiking guide to the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail corridor covers the Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania sections of the PHT. We plan to add sections for Virginia and for the Great Allegheny Passage between Pittsburgh and Ohiopyle (terminus of the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail).

The route begins at Point Lookout State Park. Although the amount of "roadside walking" in Southern Maryland makes a continuous route impractical for most people, this guide certainly makes such an endeavour possible. More importantly, the route in this guide will deliver you to some of the best places to experience the Potomac on foot — even if you're getting from one hike to the next by car or bicycle. Recent land purchases along the river by local, state and federal agencies will add many miles of trail in tidewater areas. Even now, the corridor offers a scenic and relaxed roadside walk.

In Washington, D.C., the path follows a route connecting the Fort Circle Parks, which also provides interludes in Rock Creek and Glover Archbold parks. Woven together, these trails create a world-class urban hiking experience.

Upstream from Georgetown in the District of Columbia, the towpath within the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park — the geographical spine of the PHT — stretches between head of tide 184.5 miles west through the Piedmont, Blue Ridge and Ridge and Valley provinces to Cumberland, Maryland. From here, the Allegheny Highlands Trail takes us into the town of Frostburg, then into Pennsylvania and over Big Savage Mountain, into the town of Meyersdale and on to the town of Confluence and the Youghiogheny River. The Youghiogheny River Trail South (YRTS) connects with Ohiopyle State Park and the terminus of the 70-mile Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail, which follows Laurel Ridge northeast to the town of Seward near the Conemaugh Gorge. Or, from Ohiopyle a hiker might choose to continue northwest on the YRTS and other trails in the Great Allegheny Passage trail system into Pittsburgh.

Six Trail Routes East/North of the Potomac River
This online guidebook is divided into six sections. Each section is divided into hikes. We call them hikes whether they follow trails, sidewalks or roads. You can get to each section by clicking on the link to that section.

At the end of the book, there is a chapter on additional trail resources and one that lists some ideas for further reading.

Here is what you will find in each section.

Map. Each Section is introduced by a map of the entire section. The maps do not offer detailed illustration of the lay of the land. Other agencies and organizations are already doing a great job of that. Rather, our maps help you get to the trail, offer basic navigational points relative to trailheads and roadways, and help you find some of the interesting sites along the way. In places for which a detailed hiking map has already been produced, we provide a link to the map or the partner Web site that offers the map.

Description. Each section is introduced with an overview of the route and the experience of following it, including a sketch of the surrounding terrain, proximity to water, whether you will follow road or trail, and some explanation of the landscape.

Hikes. Each hike chapter has four parts to help you prepare, navigate and enjoy the journey.

1. Hike number. In all, there are 31 hikes covering the distance from Point Lookout to Seward. They range in length from several miles to more than 20. Remember, dividing them into hikes is just a convenient way to divide the book. You can find a short hike within even the longest ones in the guide.

2. The trail you're on. This guide describes existing trails — designated and proposed segments of the PHT network — as well as routes within corridors where trails are planned. In other places, it's less a trail than a collection of experiences. Each trail is managed individually. Many segments also have a group of concerned and active people who have helped establish the trail and who now help care for it; they all would welcome your support.

3. Start and end point. Each start and end point is located where one may find automobile parking or access by public transportation.

4. About the journey. A paragraph or two describes what to expect and a few special sites to visit.

5. A trip planner. At the beginning of each section, the planner offers the information you need to pick and plan a hike. It includes the length of the hike in miles, cultural sites, parks and resource areas intersected, significant natural history features, trail intersections, parking areas, locations for water and sanitary facilities, camping opportunities on or near the trail in this section, and a few notes on lodging and dining.

6. Hike data. This is a brief table that lists milestones of the section, focusing primarily on navigational information.

7. Explore the Potomac Heritage Trail Corridor. Following the hike data are notes on a few of the interesting sites along the way.

Resources. At the end of each of the six sections, you will find a listing of organizations and agencies that may be able to provide additional information to plan your trip (e.g., visitor bureaus, park offices, etc.).

Trail and Outdoor Contacts
This chapter provides contact information on a wider range of resources than are listed in each section of the guide. It includes land trusts that are active in the corridor, hiking clubs, outdoor education groups, and other people who, either directly or indirectly, enable us all to enjoy the heritage of the trail corridor.

Maps & Books about Potomac Heritage
This is a grab bag of books, periodicals and Web sites. Some of them are gateways to more experiences and some of them offer deep exploration in the history, ecology and culture of the Potomac.

l: PHT Hiking Guide

Where are the maps?

We’re in the process of migrating the site between servers. Maps will be back soon.