Day Hike, Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail through Neabsco Regional, Julie Metz Wetlands & Leesylvania State Parks, VA

This roughly 1.5 mile up, 1.5 mile back or 3 mile hike occured on Monday, August 18, 2025. It was just me on this one.

I arrived at the Neabsco Regional Park south parking lot around 11:45 AM and started the hike. The goal was to pick up the Potomac Heritage Trail and hike it through Julie Metz Wetlands and into Leesylvania State Park as far as I could. I saw a lot of improvements since I was here last: directional signs, an improved side trail to the Neabsco Boardwalk and better trail quality.

By the way, the Neabsco Boardwalk is one of the top tourist attractions in Prince William County, VA. On weekends, the parking lots on the north side of the boardwalk are at capacity. Here’s a tip from a local (me): Drive further on US1 south, take a left at Neabsco RD, drive about a mile and park in the Neabsco Regional Park parking lot on the left. It is almost always empty unless there is a baseball game close by. And even then there are still parking spaces available.

So I took a side trail until right before the approach to Neabsco Creek Boardwalk. I then turned right onto the Potomac Heritage Trail and was headed southbound. The boardwalk for this stretch of trail was not in good shape. I was now entering Julie Metz Wetlands.

Julie Metz was an environmental scientist with the Army Corps of Engineers and helped to develop one of the first wetland banks at this park. A wetlands bank is an area set aside for preservation and given by a developer. This park opened in 1995. I hiked it in the early 2000’s. It was (and still is) mostly just a grid of trails. You may see some wildlife while there. But it is very “buggy” so be sure to wear some big juice.

I passed through this wetlands along a trail close to Neabsco RD. It was mostly well maintained. Now, there is confusion along this trail as to what the correct trail blazing color should be. Originally, it was a shade of blue. However, when I was a trail maintainer in Prince William Forest, we were told that aqua was the correct color. So we blazed the roughly 8 miles of this trail through Prince William Forest aqua. There is another section of this trail between Leesylvania State Park and US1 that is also aqua. I would think that having it blazed blue would confuse people as there are many blue blazed trails near this trail. So look for blue or aqua blazes.

I passed the parking lot for Metz Wetlands in about .5 miles, then crossed Neabsco RD to enter Leesylvania State Park at around 1 mile. I wanted to try and get as far as possible within this park as I previously hiked this trail from a parking lot about a mile in from Neabsco RD. However, I had forgotten my water and was starting to feel dehydrated. So I turned around after about a half mile and started the return trip.

Rather than take the same route back, I elected to walk Neabsco RD back to my vehicle. The advantages were that it was paved, which let me hike faster, it was breezy so I had less mosquitos buzzing around me and I believe that it was a bit shorter. I got back to my vehicle around 1:00 PM. The temps had been in the low to mid 70’s while I was on the trail. This was a welcome change from the mid 90’s that I had to endure for the last week.

So I thought that this was a nice hike. I read in an email that I got from the Greater Prince William Trails Coalition stating that Prince William County plans to extend the Neabsco Boardwalk further east and into Metz Wetlands. They also plan to build a boardwalk south of Leesylvania State Park to the Potomac Shores development to further complete the Potomac Heritage Trail within Prince William County. And they are now in the process of building a section of this trail through Featherstaone Wildlife Refuge further north. These improvements will make the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail a great attraction within Prince William County, VA.

Mike C

Map of where I hiked