Manassas Battlefield Park, Manassas VA

September 2024

I enjoy some places more, the more often I visit them. Manassas National Battlefield Park is one of those places. It’s a sprawling, 5,000-acre site made up mostly of gently rolling fields, and indeed, when I first came here, I thought the park offered little more than that: gently rolling fields and a large visitor’s center.

In fact, there are over 40 miles of trails, some winding through woods, and somehow, perhaps due to the way the park is split up, every trail provides a unique vista every minute of my hike, every time I hike here. Sometimes you’re winding your way through trees, other times looking out over miles of rural countryside, sometimes looking up a field at a cannon emplacement, imagining what it might have been like to charge uphill in the face of cannon fire.

This trip, I parked at Battery Heights, an important location during the Second Battle of Manassas. From there, I walked the paths that had been mowed through chest-height grass, down gentle slopes, up more gentle slopes, to the rockier and more disheveled fields north near the grim brick obelisk of Groveton Monument. The warm temperatures apparently kept most of the tourists away; I met nobody during my 45-minute walk except one group of 3 (plus 2 dogs) on my way back to White Base. Pure hiking perfection.

Note that the trails in this part of the park are relatively primitive; either mown grass over somewhat uneven ground or bare soil with patchy rocks. There’s enough flat ground that I never feared twisting my ankle, but you’ll want to watch where you’re walking. Which is a good idea at any time.

Cost: Free

Conditions: 80° F, partly cloudy