Great Falls Tavern (C&O Canal)
Chesapeake And Ohio Canal National Historical Park; Great Falls Tavern Is A National Register Listed 1831 Lockhouse · Potomac, Maryland
The Maryland side of Great Falls, and the half most people never see. Fifteen miles upstream of Washington the Potomac drops about seventy-six feet through a jumble of ledges and then squeezes into Mather Gorge, a slot the river has cut to sixty or seventy feet wide; Virginia watches it from clifftop overlooks, Maryland walks out into the middle of it. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal runs along this bank, and at Great Falls Tavern - an 1831 lockhouse that grew into a hotel for canal passengers, now the visitor centre - a flight of locks steps the canal up past the falls. From there a boardwalk crosses the Potomac on two bridges onto Olmsted Island, ending at an overlook that puts you above the main drop with water on three sides. Behind it the Billy Goat Trail runs three sections along the gorge, and Section A is a genuine rock scramble rather than a walk: 1.7 miles of boulder-hopping with a traverse across a rock face, the hardest marked trail within an hour of the capital.
11710 MacArthur Boulevard, Potomac, Maryland, 20854, United States
Park and towpath open daily, dawn to dusk. Great Falls Tavern Visitor Center generally 9 AM - 4:30 PM, with reduced days in winter; closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Billy Goat Trail Section A closes without notice for high water and ice. Entrance fee applies per vehicle.
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