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The Anacostia River Trail follows the tidal Anacostia River for about 10 miles, from Hyattsville and Bladensburg in Maryland to the Navy Yard in Washington. The whole route is paved and essentially flat. North of Benning Road it threads forest, fields, and marsh past Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, where a boardwalk reaches out over some of the last original tidal wetlands in the capital. Farther south it runs through Anacostia Park, where the trail system uses both banks and links to bridges across the river. Herons, egrets, osprey, and bald eagles are regular sights. At the north end it meets the Anacostia Tributary Trail System at Bladensburg Waterfront Park.
Anacostia River Trail
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Anacostia River Trail has about 117 to 165 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, birding, running, biking, and walking, with April, October, and November the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Anacostia River Trail!
In half of past years, color along the Anacostia River Trail peaks November 5 to 13, typically around November 9. The trail has 19% deciduous coverage, with the majority being yellow-poplar, sweetgum, white oak, and red maple.
Bladensburg shipped flour and tobacco down this river until its own fields filled the channel with mud. The town was chartered in 1742 at a spot first called Garrison's Landing. As planters cleared more ground for tobacco, the soil washed into the Anacostia and made it shallower and narrower. The river had silted up by 1800. Ocean-going ships struggled to reach the wharves in the early 1800s. The last vessel left in the 1830s. On August 24, 1814, a wooden bridge just upriver from today's waterfront park became a battlefield. British troops stormed it at 1 p.m. and beat the American defenders in three hours of fighting. Their win opened the road to Washington, where they burned many public buildings. The modern path took shape much later. A 1997 National Capital Planning Commission plan floated a riverside route. The 2003 Anacostia Waterfront Initiative Framework Plan proposed a 20-mile system of trails. The first segment, near RFK Stadium, opened in April 2008. The Navy Yard promenade opened to the public on April 1, 2011. Ground broke on the Kenilworth Gardens segment on April 24, 2014. It opened on October 31, 2016, closing the 3.8-mile gap between Hyattsville and Benning Road and joining the District's riverwalk to the Maryland trail network.
Northwest Branch TrailNortheast and Paint Branch TrailAnacostia Tributary Trail System
