Prince William Forest Park

Author's Comments

Fifteen thousand acres and almost no one here. I still find that hard to believe every time I pull off the interstate and the forest swallows the road within a quarter mile. Prince William sits in a strange geography of attention - close enough to DC that it should be crowded, far enough south that it is not, and shaped like nothing else in the region. This is Piedmont forest at full scale, the kind that used to cover the whole middle of Virginia before most of it became something else. The North Valley Trail along Quantico Creek is where I start, almost every time. The creek runs tea-colored over dark stone, and in late October the hollows fill with a particular kind of light - the ridges still holding color above, the valley floor already in soft shadow, the water pulling reflections of yellow and rust down its length. It is not dramatic country. It does not photograph itself. You have to walk into it and wait for the composition to arrive, which it does, quietly, usually when you have stopped trying. Pyrite Mine Road takes you deeper, to a small waterfall that rewards a slow shutter and a willingness to get your boots wet. The CCC cabins scattered through the park are their own subject - stone and timber settling into the forest the way they were meant to. Come in spring for the green, in fall for the hollows. Come on a weekday if you can. The trail map shows thirty-seven miles and most days you will have whatever mile you are on entirely to yourself.

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