Sunday, August 8, 2010

The Weekend Report: Billy Goat Trail

Saturday morning at not-very-early-but-it-felt-early o’clock, I met up with a group of friends to hike the Billy Goat Trail along the Potomac in Maryland. (This picture is not the Potomac - that's the C&O Canal.)

If you think you may want to do this hike, I will warn you: It is officially at Great Falls. BUT there are two Great Falls locations, one in Maryland and one in Virginia (only one waterfall, but two sides of the river!). So make sure you go to the correct state. (Where I come from it takes multiple tanks of gas to get to another state, but well, welcome to DC!)

Anywho, the weather was perfect and the hike was lovely! 

The first time I did this hike was two years ago when I was an intern. One of the other interns borrowed a car from her aunt, and off to MD we went! At the time I had no idea where we were in relation to DC, but that’s because I was so young, so oblivious, so lost in life…so….oh wait, so exactly the same as I am now…

Except now I know that the Billy Goat Trailhead at Angler’s Inn is just 11 miles outside of Georgetown! And there is parking and bathrooms – so that’s a win. DC is great because you can get to beautiful places like this, just a short drive outside the city.

The loop is only 4 miles, but it is a challenging 4 miles. I remember planning on running afterwards the first time I did it, only to realize that was definitely not going to happen. It’s very rocky – I’ll give it a Class 2, with a few Class 3 moments in climbing ratings. Across the river in Virginia we could see people top-roping (which I’ve done there before – I miss climbing!), and on the river we saw kayakers braving the falls.

We refreshed ourselves with milkshakes and chocolate cream pie at the Silver Diner in Arlington (healthy, I know). But I needed to re-fuel in preparation for the New Year’s In August party I got sparkly for Saturday night – genius party theme! The hosts had a Christmas in July party…so why not follow up with New Year’s?

And I those extra mocha-milkshake bites carried me through a long run with SpeedyKate on Sunday morning. For some unknown reason, our team was running slower than normal. So though usually SpeedyKate runs quite a bit faster than me, this weekend we ran together. It was fun, but oh man, I was happy to be done at 10, when she had 8 more miles to go!  Because she is a bad-ass. And I am not.

After that I was ready to lay around a bit and read my book before heading off to the Farmer's Market, 14th Street Sidewalk Sale, and then yoga Sunday afternoon.

And I baked, so check back for that tomorrow! Have you entered my GIVEAWAY yet? You probably should...