Three Billy Goats Geek

Whenever we're at a playground with a bridge, Geek Girl likes to play Three Billy Goats Gruff. Lucky parent gets to be the troll and she's the Billy Goat trip-trapping across the bridge as the troll tries to catch her. Well, last Sunday, in an effort to burn off our Saturday night milkshakes, we decided to hike Billy Goat Trail A.

Now most people when they read a newspaper story about a newly-engaged woman having to be rescued after falling might make a joke about the proposal. Daddy Geek reads "rocky and rough" trail and decides that's where we should go for our Sunday hike. Earlier this year Daddy Geek and Girl Geek visited Great Falls Park on the Virginia side, but on Sunday, we visited the Maryland side.

We parked at the C&O Canal National Historic Park and started by walking along the towpath and going to the overlook to take a look at the falls.


Here's Geek Girl at the top of a "mini mountain" that she climbed.


We continued along the towpath and took the trail for Billy Goat Trail A. The trail started off pretty easy, but then became rockier and rockier and soon we were doing a lot of scrambling over tops of rocks. And then we came to the fun part. A rocky cliff.


We waited a little bit because we knew we might be slow, but there was enough traffic going up and down that we decided we had to go for it or we would never get up.

Here's a view of me starting the climb.


I kept going, but Daddy Geek and Little Geek pulled over and here's a picture looking down.


At the top we stopped for a snack and admired the Mather Gorge.


After this part of the trail near the 2nd trail marker there is an "emergency exit" trail that returns to the towpath. However we continued to the end. Here's Geek Girl leading the way.


The rocky part of Billy Goat Trail A is 1.7 miles and ends back at the towpath. Geek Girl was tired, so Daddy Geek took the towpath back towards the car and Geek Girl and I continued on the path towards the Old Angler's Inn where we would meet up with Daddy Geek. The restaurant reminded us a lot of the Swiss restaurants we would find on the hiking trails, with the matching Swiss prices. We decided to head back to Virginia for a late lunch.