This was the Great Falls, quite pretty.
This wall seems to have some man-made components - but maybe not. The layers could be natural.
Here the layering of the rock creates a lovely little waterfall.
The landscape was unlike any I'd seen before.
There were signs saying not to walk out to this area, but I can see how tempting it would be.
These water runs were about 15 feet wide and, as you can see, very shallow. There was a sign saying that 7 people drowned here last year. My guess is that they didn't understand the power of fast water.
Daniele told me about this Billy Goat Trail, whose name (I belatedly realized) relfects the difficulty of the "walk".
By now you know that I can't resist a bare white tree...
The river is narrow enough that folks on the Virginia side can shout with folks on the Maryland side.
See the little space behind the leaning three? That's the path. And this was the easy part of the trail.
I included this one showing people to give a sense of scale. And then the "walking" got tough enough that I didn't take any more photos. Ask me sometime about the cliff :-)
On the way back, I took the canal walk. This photo is blurred but I wanted to show the easy trail and the pretty bridge.
I forget what they called this little house, but it was used when the canal was operational.
OK, this is a terrible photo, but it was the best of the dozen I took of the blue heron in the canal that I watched for about 15 minutes. I also saw two red headed pilated woodpeckers!