Mount Vernon Trail South | Lady Bird Johnson Park to Gravelly Point

Just because the first week of school is done, doesn’t mean I’m ready to give up on summer and the summer camp theme we had going on! I admit, I got used to our fun days together.

Today we hit the Mount Vernon Trail for some exercise and sightseeing. It’s an 18 mile trail that runs along the Potomac, starting at Roosevelt Island and ending at Mount Vernon where George Washington’s house is!

The kids rode bikes, Real Estate Dad and I walked.

We parked at the very popular Gravelly Point, which is a grassy park area with picnic tables and the airplane watching. As it’s just a few hundred feet north of National Airport’s runway, the planes truly fly right overhead before landing. We headed north from there toward Roosevelt Island.

The kids learned pretty quickly what “on your left” means, as you’ll hear that about a bazillion times if you’re on foot. We headed north from Gravelly Point and went by the Navy and Marine Memorial, and got a bunch of cool photos along the way.

We passed some awesome stuff along the way. You’ll see the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, National Airport, Old Town Alexandria, Fort Hunt Park and end up in Mount Vernon – if you do all 18 miles. Then of course you would have to figure out how to get home, or you would be doing 36 miles to get back to your car.

The northern parts of the trail are pretty unobstructed with views. You’ll go by the monuments, then into Old Town Alexandria where the trail does hit the streets, but it’s still quite bikeable. It does get more wooded and has more hills as you move south, but we’ll cover that in another video.

Mt Vernon Trail connects with other regional trails, Custis Trail (which then takes you to the W&OD trail which is 45 miles through Northern Virginia), Rock Creek, Four Mile Run, Potomac Heritage which runs south from Mount Vernon, and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Trail which is a 3.5 mile trail that crosses the Potomac between Virginia and Maryland.

The trail is paved except for the parts in Old Town Alexandria, which are also paved but not a contiguous trail – you will be on streets for several blocks until you get further south.

Next up, we’ll hit the southern portion of the trail for a different viewpoint!

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