Hemlock Overlook Regional Park is a multi-use

park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are urban green space, green spaces set aside for recreation inside t ...

near

Clifton, Virginia Clifton is an incorporated town located in southwestern Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 282 at the time of the 2010 census, up from 185 at the 2000 census. Incorporated by the General Assembly on March 9, 190 ...

. The park offers hilly woodlands and floodplain scenery and is a place for hiking. Currently, the park is in passive operations; no programs are offered. Hemlock Overlook is one of several parks lining Bull Run. Like the others, it is densely forested and full of hilly scenery. It covers 400 acres. Hemlock Overlook is named after the grove of hemlock trees above the banks of the Bull Run in the northern section of the park. At the northern edge of the park is the site of the Union Mills and the bridge crossing for the Orange and Alexandria Railroad over the Bull Run; both of these sites have high significance in the Battles of Bull Run. The site of a dam that supported the first hydroelectric power generation to

Fairfax County Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria and Arlington County and forms part of the suburban ring of Washington, D.C. ...

is also on the Hemlock Overlook site. A permanent orienteering course, built with the support of the Quantico Orienteering Club, sits in the southern end of the park, below Yates Ford Road and Yates Ford Trail. The

Bull Run-Occoquan Trail The Bull Run-Occoquan Trail (BROT) is a hiking trail in the U.S. state of Virginia. Designated in 2006 as a National Recreation Trail,PATC The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) is a volunteer organization that works to maintain hiking trails in the Washington, D.C. area of the United States. PATC was founded in 1927 to protect and develop the local section of the then new Appala ...

. From 1984 to 2009, Hemlock Overlook operated as a university outdoor education center, through a partnership between

George Mason University George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was origin ...

and the Park Authority. At Thanksgiving, the staff conducted "Turkey in the Hole". In 2009, the Park Authority engaged a partner, Adventure Links, to operate the facility. In 2021, the Park Authority put out a Request for Proposal for prospective new operating partners to submit proposals with a process intending for a new operator to begin programming in 2022. A new RFP was posted November 14, 2022, with a due date of December 16, 2022, for proposals to start in 2023.

References

External links

{{commonscat, Hemlock Overlook Regional Park
NOVA Parks website
NOVA Parks Scenic viewpoints in the United States Parks in Fairfax County, Virginia Regional parks in Virginia