Reveal

Widewater Gap in Winter

Yesterday, in a need to get out for a little bit, I went over to Widewater Gap on the C&O Canal for some walking and to enjoy the sunset. I've featured the gap on here a few times. You can see pictures of this beautiful setting here in the late spring and here in the fall. The photo above is how it looks in the winter.

Sunset : Widewater Gap

The gap is one of my favorite places in the D.C. Metro area. There are very few places one can access with relative ease in this area that offer this kind of tranquility and beauty. I love going here.

Encore : Widewater Gap

After I got home, I had a conversation with Virginia of Birmingham Daily Photo. Later that evening, she sent me a few quotes she had lying around in her inbox. This one struck me most:

Winter Foliage : Widewater Gap

"Although we have been taught that if we let go
we will end up with nothing, life reveals just the opposite:
that letting go is the real path to freedom."
--Sonia Rinpoche

Reflected : Widewater Gap

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 12/08

Fall

Foot bridge over the C&O Canal.

Wide Water Gap near Angler's Inn.

Fall is here and if you want to see the colors up close, a good way to do that is to go walking on the C&O Canal. During the week, traffic on the trail is pretty light. Couple it with cooler temperatures, some breezes, and rain and you'll end up with lengthy gaps between the people you pass. In another week or so, the colors should be especially prolific. Due to drought this year, though, they won't be a vibrant as years past nor is it likely they'll last long. Still, it's one feature to like about living on the East Coast.

Contrast early fall with mid-spring by going back to these pictures I took in May.

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential.

Tranquility

Approach to Widewater from the east, C&O Canal Towpath,
Angler's Inn, Carderock, MD.

Bonsai-like outcropping with trees, blue heron, and reflection,
Widewater, C&O Canal Towpath, Angler's Inn, Carderock, MD.

When I can't get to the beach and I want somewhere quiet to sit and reflect, I get up early in the morning and go to the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Towpath near Angler's Inn on the Maryland side of Great Falls on the Potomac.

The C&O Canal originally was built and served as America's first interstate commerce throughway for goods in our country. Today, in the D.C. Metropolitan Area, you can hike, bike, and kayak on more than 180 miles of trails and water. If you wanted to take on a bike trip, you could start in Georgetown, D.C.'s toniest neighborhood, and end in Pittsburgh, PA, Steel Capital of the World.

Here are some facts about the C&O Canal:

• Construction was started on July 4, 1828 and completed 22 years later on October 10, 1850.
• The canal cost $14 million to build and, at the height of construction, comprised a labor force of 4,000 men--most of them immigrants from Ireland and western Europe. In all, 35,000 laborers dug the canal, as well as aqueducts, culverts, locks, and lock houses.
  
• In the C&O Canal National Park, which was established in 1971, the canal is 184.5 miles in length, six feet deep, 60-80 feet wide depending on the section, and has an elevation of 605 feet. The towpaths, along which the product-laden barges were pulled, was originally 12 feet wide.
• There are 74 lift locks on the canal. They are 100 feet long, 14 feet wide, and 16 feet deep.
• The canal operated from 1850 to 1924.
• An average trip down the canal took seven days, working 18 hours per day.

The pictures above are of the approach to Widewater, about 1/4 of a mile west of Angler's Inn. The scene is idyllic and features a couple of tiny islands in the middle of this resevoir that have an almost Oriental quality about them. They look like large-scale bonsai. On this particular morning, the blue heron were especially active and, if you look closely, you can see several on the rocky outcroppings.

Zip: 20854 (Angler's Inn)
Zip: 20854 (Great Falls Nat'l Historic Park)

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential (Janet M. Kincaid, 05/07)

Facts About the Canal courtesy of the National Park Service, C&O Canal FAQs.