Rock Creek Park Where the Capital Remembers Its Forests

Rock Creek Park Where the Capital Remembers Its Forests

Rock Creek Park runs through the center of Washington, D.C. like a green river — 1,754 acres of hardwood forest, creek valley, and trails that split the Northwest quadrant of the city and give it the feeling that the nation's capital was built inside a park rather than the other way around. The park was established in 1890, making it one of the oldest in the National Park system, and the forest that fills it is mature enough to feel ancient.

The Valley Trail follows the creek south from the Nature Center toward the National Zoo, and the walk is shaded, flat, and accompanied by the creek's steady commentary — riffles over stone, the occasional splash of a turtle, and the particular hush that running water creates in a forest canopy. Deer browse the hillsides with the entitled posture of animals who live in a national park and know it, and the woodpeckers that work the dead snags sound like small carpenters with a deadline.

The Boulder Bridge, built in 1902 from local stone, arches over the creek with the Romanesque dignity of a bridge that takes its public-works mandate seriously. It's the most photographed spot in the park, and for good reason — the creek pools beneath it, the trees frame it, and the whole composition looks like it was designed by someone who understood that infrastructure can be beautiful if you build it from the same stone as the landscape.

Best season: April, when the dogwoods bloom and the creek runs full from spring rain and the temperature is perfect for the kind of walking that has no destination. Fall color comes late to DC but when it arrives the park's tulip poplars and oaks put on a show that competes with anything in New England. The park is free, open dawn to dusk, and accessible from dozens of points along its length.