Visit Loudoun returns as a "Trailblazer" sponsor of the Loudoun Appalachian Trail Festival. In this guest blog, Visit Loudoun shares favorite county hiking spots. For suggestions on places to stop after these hikes, see their recommendations here.

The Best Hikes and Trails in Loudoun

​From the woodland paths and riverfront views of Algonkian Regional Park and Ball’s Bluff Battlefield to the ups and downs of The Rollercoaster section of the world-famous Appalachian Trail, accessible at Bears Den Overlook, Loudoun is a playground for the active and energetic. Add in the paved Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Railroad Regional Park, the narrowest park in Virginia, that perfectly bisects the county east to west, and you have a slate of hikes and trails to suit both the serious and leisure enthusiast. It’s time to hit the trail.

Waterfront
POTOMAC HERITAGE TRAIL. This trail serves as a central point for 15 miles of riverfront parks in Loudoun. Located in Sterling, the trail encompasses portions of Algonkian Regional Park, Bles Park and Bazil Newman Riverfront Park. Hike, bike or paddle your way to different trail sites in Loudoun! Learn more about the trails and what activities are available to you here.

ALGONKIAN REGIONAL PARK. Algonkian Regional Park features 838 acres of outdoor adventure with paved and natural surface hiking trails. The trails run through wooded areas and open fields and expand into cliffs with beautiful views of the Potomac River. There are 12 rustic winterized rental cabins within the park if you want to hang around for blazing sunsets or bright sunrises. Dogs on leashes are most welcome. 

BALL’S BLUFF BATTLEFIELD REGIONAL PARK. Located on high banks above the Potomac River north of Leesburg, this regional park contains one of the smallest National Cemeteries in the nation, burial place of soldiers who died in the infamous Battle of Ball’s Bluff on October 21st, 1861. The park offers a one-mile hiking trail with interpretive signs, which take you through open ground, past the cemetery through woodland to high bluffs overlooking the river and spectacular views all around.

BAZIL NEWMAN RIVERFRONT PARK. With more than 100 acres of open parkland nestled on the banks of the Potomac River, Bazil Newman Riverfront Park is where land meets water. Walk along the woodland trails to gain access to the Potomac and Goose Creek. The park also has a flowing river for canoeing and kayaking activities. It’s the one stop shop for outdoor adventure.

RESERVOIR PARK TRAIL. Part of the NOVA Parks system, this park and reservoir sprawls across 600 acres with a winding six-mile circular trail along its shore and through dense woodland. You’re in the suburbs but a world away. Accessible year-round, the trail is primarily used for walking and nature trips; dogs are allowed but must be kept on a leash. There is also kayaking, canoeing, paddle boarding and fishing, the lake stocked with several species of bass and trout. Cast from the banks or hop into a non-gas boat to get the big ones out in the middle. A Virginia fishing license is required.

Land
THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL. Make your way to Bears Den off Route 7 in the Blue Ridge Mountains above Bluemont and hike the short but strenuous Loudoun stretch of the Appalachian Trail – known as Virginia’s Rollercoaster. Bear’s Den has spectacular views from high rocks of the Shenandoah Valley to the west, pine trees all around. On the other side of Route 7, above Round Hill, the trail leads you down the mountain along a set of stones that form a natural staircase leading to the Blackburn Trail Center log cabins. A rustic 1910-built lodge, it’s a refreshment station for hikers and available for rent outside of peak season. Nearby, Dirt Farm Brewing has dedicated 3.5 miles of wooded trail at a 400-foot elevation overlooking the breweries farmland.

HAL AND BERNI HANSON REGIONAL PARK. Tucked away in southeast Loudoun near Brambleton is the massive Hal and Berni Hanson Regional Park. You can hike, walk or bike paved and natural trails at this 257-acre regional park. Beyond hiking, the park has no shortage of multipurpose athletic fields including four pickleball/tennis courts, two turf fields and four baseball/softball fields. 

BANSHEE REEKS NATURE PRESERVE. This little-known, 725-acre nature preserve south of Leesburg features more than 20 miles of marked trails through dense woodland in the rolling valleys along Goose Creek. Hikers can see diverse forest wildlife and plant life. To assist in preservation in 2016, goats from Willowsford Farm were guided through the preserve to manage unwanted vegetation.

WASHINGTON & OLD DOMINION RAILROAD REGIONAL PARK. Probably the best-known trail in the county, this 45-mile park – the narrowest in Virginia – runs from Sterling in the east to Purcellville out west on the bed of the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad. While you can horseback ride it in sections, it’s best for cycling or hiking, particularly the flat stretch between Hamilton and Purcellville, beautiful farm fields all around.

—Visit Loudoun
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This guest blog comes to us from Mills Kelly, author of  Virginia's Lost Appalachian Trail. Historian and lifelong hiker Kelly will join us at the festival this year to  share a bit of his current project: A Hiker's History of the Appalachian Trail, a comprehensive chronicle of the A.T. told through the experiences of individual hikers.

When you go on a hike on the Appalachian Trail, what do you bring to eat? 
 
If you’re just out for a few hours or maybe for the day, you probably packed some energy bars, maybe some fresh or dried fruit and something snacky like trail mix or a candy bar. If you’re backpacking, you might have some freeze-dried meals, some oatmeal, some jerky and lots of energy bars, trail mix, or other high carb, high protein snacks.
 
But if you were hitting the trail in the 1930s, '40s or '50s, you almost certainly brought along some onion sandwiches—two buttered slices of bread and a nice, juicy slice of fresh onion. 
 
For my forthcoming book, A Hiker’s History of the Appalachian Trail ), I researched what foods hikers brought with them in their packs over the decades, and some of what I found was quite a surprise. Ever since I started seeing onion sandwiches on hiker “grub lists” from the 1920s to the '60s, I wondered if anyone I know had ever eaten one, much less taken such a sandwich with them on the trail. I asked around and the closest I got was one friend who told me that her grandmother used to eat them for lunch on Saturdays. As far as hikers are concerned, onion sandwiches have gone the way of the dinosaur.
 
But what about bacon? If you’ve ever camped at an Appalachian Trail shelter, there's a reasonable chance that you woke up to the smell of bacon sizzling in a pan either at the shelter or in someone’s tent site. I think it’s fair to say that long distance hikers get their bacon fixes in restaurants near the trail, but until at least the 1960s, they were advised to bring large slabs of bacon with them on their treks.
 
How did they keep that bacon from greasing up their packs, especially in warm weather? Simple! Abercrombie & Fitch, which used to be America’s most important supplier of outdoor gear, sold something called a “pork bag” that hikers used to keep all that grease at bay.
 
And then there was “Dynamite Soup.” Over and over, I kept seeing references to this soup in the hiker advice literature. But despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find any trace of it in product catalogs or old advertisements. Like a small pebble in my hiking shoe, not knowing what Dynamite Soup was annoyed me. As things often go in the archives, I found the answer when I wasn’t looking for it. A couple of years ago, I was reading the correspondence of one of the founders of the Appalachian Trail and in a letter to a friend, he laid it all out for me:
 
"One of our mainstays is [a] soup or stew that is not always above suspicion. With a basis of a handful of rice we add any dehydro vegetables in sight, especially onions, and a stick of Erbswurst, also know from its appearance and its (later) explosive qualities, as dynamite soup—with a little slab of chopped bacon and anything else that is lying around camp." 
 
So there it was, “dynamite” because it was gas-inducing. I’m not sure how I didn’t think of that in the first place.
 
What hikers ate “back in the day” is just one of the many ways the hiker experience on the Appalachian Trail has changed over the past 100 years. Gear, the environment, the trail’s route—all are very different today. The A.T. is always changing, as are the hikers who put one foot in front of another heading north or south. Here’s hoping that onion sandwiches never come back.

--Mills Kelly