Mount Vernon Trail | Fort Hunt Park to Riverside Park

Today we hiked the southern portion of the Mount Vernon Trail!

Initially I wanted to park at the Collingwood Picnic Area, but once we arrived, I couldn’t determine how to get to the trail. I believe in looking at a map now, that was user error. I didn’t want to cross too many roads with the kids so we went down and parked at Fort Hunt.

Fort Hunt is mostly just picnic areas. There’s no playground or real sports areas. There was one baseball diamond that we saw and a couple nets in the middle of the park. If you want to picnic, you need to file for a permit.

We headed out of the park and still had to go on a couple short roads with blind spots for cars but we got to the trail safely and went on our way. This was definitely more of a wildlife adventure. It’s more wooded and hillier on the southern end of the trail. We saw some cool spiders, turtles, fish and got a bunch of shells. Unfortunately, we realized a bit too late that the rotten poopy smell was coming from said shells.

We made it as far south as Riverside Park, between the 1-2 mile markers, but as I’ve learned with the kids and hiking, when we go out, we must come back. We didn’t make it to Mount Vernon Gardens or George Washington’s house, but as Mercina reminded us, “He’s Dead.”

 

 

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