When was the last time you hiked Section B of the Billy Goat Trail?
If your honest answer is "years," you are not alone, and you are not wrong to have stopped checking. For a long stretch, Section B sat closed after flood and erosion damage tore through the ecologically sensitive stretch between Carderock and Widewater. Locals who used to loop A into B into a longer Saturday morning simply crossed it off the list and never looked back. That is the kind of thing that happens in a neighborhood you already know well. You stop re-checking facts you settled years ago, because why would you.
Here is why you would: it reopened this spring, according to a longtime local trail blogger who hikes the C&O corridor regularly and tracks conditions section by section. If that holds, it means the trail map in your head is out of date, and so is the loop you have been recommending to houseguests.
The Trail Nobody Expected Back
Section B was never the trail people came for. Section A gets that job, and it earns it honestly: 1.7 miles of rock scrambling along the rim of Mather Gorge, rated the only strenuous trail in the park, and busy enough on a nice weekend that you should plan to arrive early or not at all. Section B is quieter and gentler, a moderate 2.7-mile loop that stays closer to the river through wooded, sometimes overgrown terrain near the Marsden Group Campground. Section C, further downstream near Carderock, is the wide, easy one, more suited to a walk than a hike.
For years, that middle option simply was not on the table.
| Section | Distance | Character | Status as of September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 1.7 mi (3.7 mi with return loop) | Strenuous rock scrambling along Mather Gorge, no dogs | Open, busy on weekends |
| B | 2.7 mi loop | Moderate, wooded riverside path, dogs on leash | Reported reopened spring 2026 after years of flood-damage closure |
| C | Varies by access point | Easy, wide, family-friendly | Open |
A word of caution that fits how this neighborhood actually thinks about its own park: conditions on this stretch of the Potomac change with rainfall and erosion faster than any single blog post can track. Before you plan a Saturday around Section B specifically, it is worth a quick check of the park's own conditions page. That habit, checking before you go rather than assuming, is exactly the muscle this trail has been quietly asking Potomac hikers to build back up.
Six Saturdays, Not the Whole Season
The canal boat rides at Great Falls Tavern feel like a fixture, the kind of thing that is simply always there when you want it. This year it is not. The National Park Service has the 2026 program running every Saturday through October 15, with rides at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., tickets sold first come, first served at the Tavern Visitor Center starting an hour before each sailing. They cannot be reserved ahead of time.
Count forward from today and that is six Saturdays, starting this weekend. Not the whole fall. Not even most of October.
This matters less because of the boat ride itself and more because of what it signals about how this particular piece of the park works. The historic program at Great Falls Tavern has always been weather and water dependent, and the schedule you get in any given year is not the schedule you got the year before. Treating "the boat rides" as a fixed fall fixture, the way you might treat the farmers market or the ice rink, is the kind of assumption that costs you a Saturday with out-of-town guests who were counting on it.
The park itself does not get quieter just because the boat program is winding down. Regulars know the rhythm of a nice weekend at the Tavern lot: by mid-morning, one car leaves before another gets in. That congestion has nothing to do with the boat schedule and everything to do with how many people in Montgomery County treat Great Falls as their default Saturday, which is worth remembering if you are planning around the last few sailings rather than just the trail.
The Other End of the Park Is Also Mid-Project
Great Falls is not the only piece of Potomac's outdoor routine in transition right now. Over at Cabin John Regional Park, the parking lot off Westlake Drive near the dog park has been under construction since mid-January, with Montgomery Parks saying the work would run through the summer of 2026, a portion of the lot staying open throughout. We are just past that window now, so the project may be wrapping up or may still be finishing final touches. Either way, the lot includes new stormwater management and an ADA-accessible trailhead with new picnic tables, a genuine upgrade, but also a reason to expect the space to look different than you remember before you pull in with the dog.
Inside the park, the Cabin John Ice Rink keeps its own separate calendar, one that has nothing to do with weather or trail conditions. Public skating sessions run on a regular published schedule, with occasional short closures worth checking before you drive over, including a closure spanning September 5 through 7 this year. If your Saturday routine includes the rink, that is worth a glance at the current calendar rather than an assumption based on last month's schedule.
Two different parts of Potomac, two different kinds of change, both landing in the same six-week window. That is not a coincidence so much as it is what a neighborhood in active use looks like: the pieces that get the heaviest weekend traffic are also the pieces most likely to be under a rake, a permit, or a seasonal deadline at any given moment.
What's Actually New to Eat Nearby
None of this changes what you do after the hike, except that there is more to choose from than there was a year ago.
Maurizio's, the modern Italian restaurant from the team behind Cava Mezze, was originally aimed at a summer opening at 10120 River Road, the address that spent decades as Renato's before that restaurant closed in September 2024. As of last month it was still finishing its buildout, so if you have been watching for the doors to open, it is still worth checking rather than assuming you missed it. It joins Duke's Grocery, the British-themed spot already open in the former Lock 72 space at Potomac Place, and sits across River Road from Potomac Village Shopping Center, where Tally Ho has anchored the corner for years. Over at Cabin John Village, Pura Vida Miami opened in February in the space that used to be Colada Shop, a wellness-leaning café with a patio if you want something lighter than a sit-down dinner after a morning on the towpath.
None of that changes your hike. It does change what a Saturday in Potomac looks like end to end, which is the more useful way to think about a neighborhood you already live in.
The Read on All of This
A neighborhood does not stay the same just because you already know it. The trail you wrote off years ago as closed for good is worth another look. The boat program you assumed ran through fall has an actual end date, and it is closer than it feels. The park you take the dog to on Sundays has a construction schedule and a rink calendar that both deserve a quick check before you go, not because anything is wrong, just because Potomac in September 2026 is not identical to Potomac in September 2025.
That habit, checking the current facts rather than the ones you settled a while back, is the same instinct that serves people well whenever they are making a real decision about a home here, not just a Saturday plan. If you are ever weighing a move within Potomac, or wondering what a specific block or floor plan is actually worth in this market right now, Franco Saladino brings that same habit of checking rather than assuming to the conversation. Let's Connect.
