Glencarlyn Park

Author's Comments

You do not expect this place. That is the thing I keep coming back to. You are in Arlington, surrounded on all sides by the logic of the suburb, and then you drop down into Glencarlyn and the city simply stops. Long Branch runs through a real forest, the kind with mature canopy and leaf litter and the sound of moving water covering everything else, and the CCC bridges from the 1930s sit in it like they have always been there. They probably always will. I come in late October, usually on a weekday morning, when the hardwoods are halfway through their turn and the light comes down through the canopy in pieces. The stone arches photograph well in that light. So does the creek, if you have a tripod and the patience for a long exposure - the water goes soft and the rocks hold their texture and the bridge frames itself without much help from me. What I like most is how few people are here. Even on a Saturday afternoon in peak color, I have walked the main trail and passed maybe three dogs and their owners. For a park inside the Beltway, that is almost improbable. I do not entirely understand why Glencarlyn stays quiet, and I am not inclined to examine it too closely. Some places reward restraint. You come, you walk slowly, you make the photograph you came for, and you leave without telling too many people.

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