Mary and I played hooky today and returned to Great Falls Park. Only four days since our last excursion, but fall has advanced. The trees have much more yellow than on Sunday, but still few oranges or reds. Poison ivy and a five-leafed vine I don't recognize (but no doubt should) seem to be the only reds this year. Probably the summer drought is muting the autumnal palette.

We hike south to Widewater, near Old Angler's Inn. The Sunday throngs are gone. Few people about, and most are either running or biking. A couple of fishermen with rods tucked into backpacks are strolling the towpath; not sure where they'll fish, since the canal at Widewater is down about four feet from normal level because of a breached levee.

It's serenely quiet. The loudest sound is a steady northwest wind that ripples the canal's surface and creates the illusion of flowing water. The usual cacophony of cawing crows or nattering jays is missing. In fact, there are surprisingly few animals to be seen. At first, just a half dozen silent hawks riding the thermals rising off the water and the rocks. Then a magnificent eagle joins them, and they scatter, except for one brave hawk who seems to play tag with the eagle in the thermals. After they disappear over the treeline, eleven mallards come in for a foot-first landing that could have been choreographed for a National Geographic special.

The sun is setting so we traipse back to the park overlook. Two kayakers paddle back and forth at the top of the falls, trying to select a route through the rapids. They appear to give up, backpaddling toward the Virginia shore and vanishing behind a boulder. But two minutes later they suddenly pop up several hundred yards downriver, in front of a cliff, and we realize that there's another river channel, hidden by a 70 foot tall rock outcropping. They survived. We head for the parking lot.

10.0 Lock 18

This blog is an experiment. It's easy to forget in the hustle and bustle of urban life how beautiful the DC area really is. We're going to try to photograph and write about that beauty at least one a month over the next year.

The inspiration was the visit Mary and I made today to Great Falls National Historical Park on the C&O Canal. It was a stunning fall day, with the sky a cloudless azure, the temperature in the low 70s and the the leaves still ten days or so from their color peak.

We walked south on the C&O Canal towpath from Lock 20 to the overlook, then down to Lock 15 and back (http://www.nps.gov/choh/planyourvisit/upload/chohmap.pdf). The hike has magnificent views of the gorge carved through the bedrock by the Potomac River. You're only 12 or 13 miles from the White House, but you could as easily be on the fall line in a river in Down East Maine or upstate New York. Deer peered from the hillside and a half dozen hawks circled in the thermals created by the sun-heated cliffs and boulders.

I'm not sure why, but the kayakers who usually train on that section of the river weren't out today. We weren't alone, though. It was the weekend, so we shared the C&O Canal towpath with literally hundreds of other nature lovers.

The day's human highlight was a fortyish woman in a trendily ripped sweat shirt (Is it just me or is the '80's Flashdance look making a comeback?). She was trying to train a long-haired chestnut dog the size of a canister vacuum that looked like a cross between Old Yeller and a Pomeranian. The dog was naturally distracted by the dozens of people walking by. Nonetheless, the owner kept calling to her, "Beyonce', come here. Sit, Beyonce', sit."

Makes me want to visit on weekdays, when it's just the flora and fauna and us. Which reminds me - if there's not a Google Goggles for plants, I need to check the app store to see if there's an electronic version of A Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs.