Monday, March 31, 2008

Goose Creek

On Saturday, we took a hike at the Keep Loudoun Beautiful park along Goose Creek. Trail information called the difficulty level "moderate", which was more up to my speed being 2 months away from giving birth than the Appalachian trail labeled "hard". We started off highway 7 near the golf course but didn't make it down to the Potomac. We turned around shortly after coming across an abandoned dam or water house. I checked into it this morning, I believe it was the failed Goose Creek canal, though I'll have to look into it some more to confirm this is one and the same. Edit: The canal seems to be at another location, closer to the Potomac. Still not sure what exactly we found here.

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Geese perched on the opposite side of Goose Creek near the other canal remains.

Other photos from our adventure:
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I stumbled across your blog while checking around the net for pictures of the old Goose Creek Canal after having just kayaked the creek itself from the W&OD trail bridge off of Cochran Mill Rd. down to Kephart Landing near the Potomac River.

From the pictures and an old map that I've found, it appears that the ruins you came across are the old Cooke's Mill water-house which would have diverted flow from the stream to the open area with the axle-like rod running through it. That would have turned the mill machinery such as the grind stones and conveyor belts. If you choose to hike that area again, the best preserved locks are at the far end of the golf-course on the nort-west side of goose creek up stream from where you took those photos. They are beautiful stone works with part of the weir-dam still intact.