Routes around Wiehle Reston Metro

[jabberwocky]

Not clear on where you got lost. In the park proper, or on the way there? It sounds like you rode the major roads to the skatequest lot and then tried to ride the main trail over to the cricket fields at the far end of the park, but I’m not totally sure.

The road route I’d recommend is: exit the station to the north, make a left on Reston Station Blvd (the main drag), immediate right on Metro Center Dr, cross Sunset Hills and then make a right on the W&OD and follow that down to Michael Faraday and the skate quest lot. That largely skips the big mess at Whiele and Sunset Hills.

For inside the park, there are some maps posted at the trailhead and at a few places scattered around the park, but they tend to not be that accurate (the current official map was drawn prior to all the trailwork that has been done over the past few years and is in some ways aspirational, as it shows trail that was never made, or made in a way that doesn’t entirely match the map). I’d recommend using the unofficial map I maintain (current version: http://i.imgur.com/D7LNTEp.jpg ) as it tends to be more up to date. Plus I drew it, so its obviously awesome.

For in park routing to the cricket field, you want to basically follow the main doubletrack. It can be a bit tricky to follow the first time through though. Googles map vaguely shows a trail, but it isn’t accurate and I doubt that routing would work. OpenStreetMap tends to be a bit better, but I don’t remember is showing everything. The route should be: get onto the doubletrack in the corner of the skatequest. After 1/4 mile, it bears left (if you find yourself on some dirt woops up near the fitness club you went right instead). Follow the doubletrack to the bottom of the hill and cross the stream. Go right after the stream and climb the hill. You’ll go by some big houses off to your right before going down and up again. At the top of the next hill is the soccer fields; stay on the trail across the end of them, then stay left as it enters the woods again. It switchbacks down to the bottom, across another stream, and just follow it for a bit and it will climb and you’ll be at the end of the cricket fields.

[jabberwocky]

Also, for Mayuri, I’d personally just do Soapstone to Glade. Its not the most direct route, but both roads are very bike friendly (Soapstone has a bike lane for most of its length, and Glade is wide and lightly trafficked).

[elbows]

Wow, jabberwocky, That map is super helpful. Thanks so much. I got lost around where the stream comes down kind of at over 1/3 of x and up 1/3 of y if that makes any sense.

[jabberwocky]

Gotcha. At the 5/8/10 junction? From there, its possible to get over to the cricket fields via either doubletrack trail. Sounds like maybe you stayed left and then got into the mess of trail over past the campground. There is not only several official trails there, but also a bunch of social trail made by people from the campground just tromping around in that flood plain. so it would be easy to get lost.

In the future, it might be easiest to cross that stream, stay left, and when you hit the campground just follow the gravel around, up past the skatepark, and then hit the pavement road that provides access to the sports fields and ride over to the cricket fields from there. Less trail but its easier to follow.

The best purely trail route is what I listed above. Going by numbers, thats 1 to 3 to 5 to 8 to 18.

Its not a terrible park for routing, but it can be tricky the first few times if you don’t know your way around.

[elbows]

Thanks again. I will try again tomorrow. Hopefully, I can better publicize this route through WAFC, which attracts a lot of car-light people out there. People are driving zipcars. There must be a better way.

[jabberwocky]

I can put you touch with Frank Raiti if you want. He’s mister Lake Fairfax for MORE (the regional mountain bike club). If you wanted to propose some signage or something to make things easier for people trying to get from the metro over to the park I’m sure he could run that by the park.

[elbows]

Thanks. It might be worth improving the signage from the metro.

Thanks to your map and directions, I made it without any wrong turns but there were a number of places where I think I got lucky.

Also, I wonder if #7 is in the wrong spot.

[jabberwocky]

@elbows 99657 wrote:

Also, I wonder if #7 is in the wrong spot.

It should be correct (at least it was the last time I was out there, which was a month or two ago). Thats the trail that cuts right as you descend from the ice rink lot. It has a bunch of berms and rollers and table jumps. There used to be a huge mess of trail in that whole area, but some was destroyed when they built the new fitness center and then the past few years have seen all new trail built and the old stuff closed. Its actually easier to navigate that section now because its just a loop, whereas before it was a big spiderweb of intersecting and criss-crossing trail.

I think I’m gonna be out on Sunday. I’ll double check it while I’m there.

One thing I’d like to do is get that uploaded to Maprika. Once I do that it would be viewable for free on any smartphone (with the app) and it would display your current location.

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