Qualla: Mount Vernon Trail

Mount Vernon Trail: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The original uploader was Ser Amantio di Nicolao at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0. On Sundays in the early 1970s, the National Park Service used to rope off the outside lane of the George Washington Memorial Parkway for cyclists. The cars and the bicycles shared the road every other day of the week, and the arrangement worked the way it always works - dangerously. In 1971 a group of riders staged a bike-in along the parkway to demand a proper trail. Local civic activists Ellen Pickering and Barbara Lynch led the lobbying that followed. Within months the Park Service began grading a six-foot gravel path along the parkway shoulder. Volunteers spent every weekend for four months spreading the gravel by hand. The first section opened on April 15, 1972, ran from the Mason Bridge to Slaters Lane in Alexandria, and cost $27,000 to build. The Mount Vernon Trail was born from that bike-in. Today it runs eighteen miles, draws thousands of users every weekend, and is the busiest paved trail in the Washington region.

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Image: The original uploader was Ser Amantio di Nicolao at English Wikipedia. | CC BY-SA 3.0

Mount Vernon Trail: Before the Trail

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bobco85, CC0. The story does not actually start in 1971. In 1940 the federal government built a path between Arlington Memorial Bridge and what is now the Navy-Merchant Marine Memorial - a small ribbon of asphalt for walkers and the occasional cyclist. That path was eventually extended to the ...

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Image: Bobco85 | CC0

Mount Vernon Trail: Paving and Bridges

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ben Schumin, CC BY-SA 2.5. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the trail was paved, rerouted off public streets, and pushed onto its own right-of-way. A controversial 1.8-mile section was paved between Alexandria Avenue and Fort Hunt Road in 1978 after litigation by neighbors concerned about safety and noise. ...

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Image: Ben Schumin | CC BY-SA 2.5

Mount Vernon Trail: What the Ride Looks Like

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bobco85, CC0. From the northern trailhead near Theodore Roosevelt Island the trail runs south along the Potomac with the Washington skyline visible across the river - the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Capitol dome. It passes the Navy-Merchant Marine Memorial, where tulips bloo...

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Image: Bobco85 | CC0

Mount Vernon Trail: The Network

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bobco85, CC0. The Mount Vernon Trail is more than itself. It is the central spine of the Washington-area paved trail system. Mile zero connects to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Trail, which crosses to National Harbor in Maryland. The Four Mile Run Trail joins it south of the airport. The Custis Tr...

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Image: Bobco85 | CC0