Blooms Park, VA Recon

<<Mikeblogs Home

On Wednesday, January 24, 2020, Tom O'Brien, Dave McIntyre and myself went to check out the new Blooms Park in Manassas Park, VA for an upcoming POPUMC hike.

My themometer read 18 degrees when I left the house on Wednesday, January 22, 2020. But I knew that it would get to above freezing before we ended this recon so I wasn't too concerned. I met Dave and Tom at the Prince of Peace UMC parking lot at 9:00 AM and we carpooled the short distance to Blooms Park in Manassas Park, VA to check out this new 3.3 hike for a possible future outing for the

POPUMC Hiking Group .

We arrived at around 9:30AM. The park is located at the end of Manassas DR in Manassas Park.

Map of our hike.

This 270 acre park has an interesting history in that it was involved in the civil war and there are Union graves in the area. It was a park, then became a golf course, was owned by Prince William County at one point, then was transferred back to Manassas Park to be managed as a park. The game plan for the city of Manassas Park is to only mow 10 feet on each side of the asphalt golf cart track and let the golf course again revert back to forest.

There is ample parking at the trail head. The club house for the golf course is still there though it is closed. This trail is blazed differently than most in that they have painted yellow arrows on the asphalt path for you to follow. There is very good signing and they have blocked off golf cart paths that used to go to the tee or greens areas (PWC, please take note!).

Tom & Dave @ Mile 1.

Before we did this hike I thought 'Golf course hike, nice and flat, piece of cake.' Man, was I wrong. The first mile or so was somewhat tame. The terrain was mostly hills and dales. We had some ups, some downs and a few level stretches. What was neat was that you could see where the tee off areas, the sand traps and the greens areas were. But they were now reverting back to woods.

Towards the rear of the park things got interesting. We saw a couple solar powered restrooms along the way but did not use them so we're not sure if they were locked or not. There is a stream that goes through the left side of this park. According to Google maps, it is called Russia Branch. We saw the railroad tracks that went north across Bull Run to Clifton, VA. A couple trains came through while we were hiking. Due to the angle that we were at, we could not see Bull Run. Hemlock Overlook Regional Park in Fairfax County, VA is right across Bull Run and slightly to the east. The ups and downs started getting steeper at this point.

We saw numerous fiberglass bridges that were blocked off. Again, these were side trails to the tees, sand traps and greens. I hope that they utilize these for hiking side trails some day. We saw about a half dozen people on the trail on a Wednesday. Some were running, some were walking and some were walking and/or running with their dog. We also saw 3 deer on one of the former fairways

It was the last mile that was a real challenge. I estimate that one of the

Pond @ Mile 1.2.

ups that we encountered was about 100 feet of elevation change over 300 feet. Now that's steep! We had to really lean into the hill and take alot of breaks. But we made it back to Tom's vehicle by around 11:00 AM. It was above freezing then so all was good. We all agreed that this would be a good hike for the POPUMC Hiking group with the disclaimer that it was a moderate to strenous hike. I believe that we have this hike scheduled for Saturday, October 4, 2025 in case anyone would like to join us then. Or you can check it out yourself anytime (between dawn and dusk). In closing, this was a good hike and great day to be outside.

Blooms Park, City of Manassas Park Government Page

Rock formation & stream.

Park sign @ entrance.

Closed bridge @ mile 2.4.

^ Back to top

< Previous Blog Post | Next > Blog Post

Posted By Mike C on 01-24-2020 | See All Posts | View/Add Comments(0)

<<Mikeblogs Home | mikecalabrese.xyz | Updated 12/25/2022 11:34:42