Little Hunting Creek is a 3.6-mile-long (5.8 km) primarily tidal tributary of the Potomac River located in Fairfax County, Virginia, not to be confused with Hunting Creek farther north. A stone-arch bridge, completed in 1931,
carries traffic on the George Washington Memorial Parkway across the narrow mouth of the creek, located 96.6 miles (155.5 km) upriver from the mouth of the Potomac.
The Washington family built its Mount Vernon plantation on the Potomac River along both banks of Little Hunting Creek during colonial times.
The creek is bordered by residential communities in addition to the Mount Vernon property. It is a popular location for recreational fishing, and much of the wildlife characteristic of the tidal Potomac wetlands can be spotted there.
Little Hunting Creek, viewed from its east bank looking south
Ospreys and Canada geese on Little Hunting Creek
The Potomac River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States that flows from the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It is 405 miles (652 km) long, with a drainage area of 14,700 square miles (38,000 km2), and is the fourth-largest river along the East Coast of the United States and the 21st-largest in the United States. More than 5 million people live within its watershed.
Potomac River
The Potomac River in Washington, D.C., with Arlington Memorial Bridge in the foreground and Rosslyn, Arlington, Virginia in the background
The North Branch between Cumberland, Maryland, and Ridgeley, West Virginia, in 2007
Canoers at Hanging Rocks on the South Branch in the 1890s