Did you guess the loca­tion of this water fall? The answer is below the pic­ture.

Great Falls Park is along the Potomac Riv­er in McLean, Vir­ginia. It is main­tained by the Nation­al Park Ser­vice but is not an offi­cial Nation­al Park. In 1784, George Wash­ing­ton pro­posed one of the first canals in this coun­try to bypass the falls look­ing to improve com­merce and trav­el up to the Ohio riv­er val­ley. High­er engi­neer­ing result­ed in improved lock tech­nol­o­gy and ear­ly use of black pow­der blast­ing in the con­struc­tion. It took 17 years to build the canal, which did­n’t work very well. Most of the year the water is too low or too high. The area still floods today.

In 1906, they built the Great Falls Amus­ment Park which exist­ed until 1952. The coun­ty main­tained a carousel until 1972 which was destroyed by Hur­ri­cane Agnes.

Today, it’s a great place for hik­ing, kayak­ing and rock climb­ing. Read more here: http://www.nps.gov/grfa/index.htm

After your hike, check out The Old Brogue Irish Pub on George­town Pike in the town of Great Falls for good beer, food and music. http://www.oldbrogue.com/

Thanks for play­ing.