Clarke's Gap, also known as Clarks Gap, is a

pass Pass, PASS, The Pass or Passed may refer to: Places *Pass, County Meath, a townland in Ireland *Pass, Poland, a village in Poland *El Paso, Texas, a city which translates to "The Pass" * Pass, an alternate term for a number of straits: see Li ...

through

Catoctin Mountain Catoctin Mountain, along with the geologically associated Bull Run Mountains, forms the easternmost mountain ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are in turn a part of the Appalachian Mountains range. The ridge runs northeast–southwest for ...

west of

Leesburg, Virginia Leesburg is a town in and the county seat of Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. It is part of both the Northern Virginia region of the state and the Washington metropolitan area, including Washington, D.C., the nation's capital. European se ...

. The gap has an elevation of . The gap is not a true

wind gap A wind gap (or air gap) is a gap through which a waterway once flowed that is now dry as a result of stream capture. A water gap is a similar feature, but one in which a waterway still flows. Water gaps and wind gaps often provide routes whic ...

, but rather a man-made railroad cut through a local

saddle point In mathematics, a saddle point or minimax point is a Point (geometry), point on the surface (mathematics), surface of the graph of a function where the slopes (derivatives) in orthogonal directions are all zero (a Critical point (mathematics), ...

between two ridges to the southeast and northwest created by the drainage of Dry Mill Branch of Tuscarora Creek to the east and an unnamed tributary of Catoctin Creek to the west. The original road between

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

and

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

, known as Vestal's Gap or Braddock's Road passed through the gap beginning in the middle 18th century. Later, in the 1860s the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad, predecessor of the

Washington and Old Dominion Railroad The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad (colloquially referred to as the W&OD) was an intrastate short-line railroad located in Northern Virginia, United States. The rail transport, railroad was a successor to the bankruptcy, bankrupt Washingt ...

was routed through the gap. The railroad christened the gap when it established a station there, naming it after a nearby landowner, Addison H. Clarke. Today, Dry Mill Road (Virginia State Route 699 (VA Route 699)) and the Washington and Old Dominion Trail still pass through the gap. VA Route 7 and VA Route 9 pass just to the north of the gap, through a man-made highway cut, which the

Virginia Department of Transportation The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is the agency of the U.S. state, state government responsible for transportation in the state of Virginia in the United States. VDOT is headquartered at the Virginia Department of Highways Buildin ...

has mistakenly signed as "Clarks Gap".

References

*Scheel, Eugene. ''Loudoun Discovered:Communities, Corners and Crossroads.'' Vol. 4. 2002, pp. 1–3. {{Gaps of the Appalachian Mountains Landforms of Loudoun County, Virginia Wind gaps of Virginia