A River Runs Through It

One of Dennis' interests is weather. Since we had a great deal of rain over the previous 24 hours, yesterday he checked the Potomac River water levels throughout the day. He often goes down to the river to observe. Last evening he asked if I'd like to go up to Great Falls and see the river. Last Spring we went to the Maryland side of the park. Today we to the Virginia side. It's a pretty spectacular place, as you can see from this picture in the National Park Service brochure. At least until it rains.

We could hear the river as soon as we got out of the car, and this is the falls looked like when we got to the overlooks. You read descriptions of raging rivers, and you see the video that accompanies news reports, but nothing really prepares you for actually seeing it in person.

And this is about as close as I care to get to a raging river!

The walkway you can see across the river is on Olmstead Island on the Maryland side of the park. Since we saw no people on it, we think they must have closed the bridge that gets you to it.

The Potomac watershed is the second largest emptying into the Chesapeake Bay. It includes the Shenandoah, which joins it at Harpers Ferry. We saw a lot of debris--mostly trees, but occasionally things like this barrel.

 

Further down the trail you can get a little closer to where the cliffs usually are.











While we were there one of the Park Police helicopters made several passes over the area. I also saw a Coast Guard helicopter fly by at one point.









A small oasis of calm in the rocks of one of the observation areas.

 










After an early lunch we drove back to Theodore Roosevelt Island to see how things were there. As we drove through Georgetown along the river we could see that the Potomac was high and running swiftly, though not as raging as further upstream. The lower path was flooded on the Roslyn side of the island.

On the DC side the river was literally running over the lower path.

Reminders of the power of nature.