Despite it being a chilly morning, I wasn't the only one on the trail.

The storm the day before left icy trees. But the trail itself was mostly clear.

One side of the trail contains a series of marshes and small ponds, remnants of smaller secondary canals.

Cardinals in the brush.

These stones are remains of a dam that blocked the Rappahannock River for more than 150 years. It's destruction, completed in 2005, was celebrated by outdoor enthusiasts.

The rapids near the dam were named after Senator Warner. He helped secure resources for the dam's destruction.

Time to turn back...

This Georgian-style house sits on one of the larger hills in the city. Now part of the Mary Washington Hospital complex, apparently nobody of historical importance ever lived in the house.

A bridge across Route 1 carries University of Mary Washington signage. Named after George Washington's mother, it was the women’s college for the University of Virginia until 1972.

Mary Washington was born in 1708 and died Aug. 25, 1789. She moved to Fredericksburg in 1772. The monument was erected in the 1890s.

The estate was the 1775 home of Fielding and Betty Lewis. Betty was George Washington's sister.

It commemorates a Virginia statue authored by Thomas Jefferson that ultimately became the basis of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Virginia committee that wrote the statue met in the city.

He was a brigadier general in the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War and a close friend to George Washington. Mercer died at the Battle of Princeton. Scottish by birth, he was a prominent businessman in Fredericksburg prior to the war.

The canal path ended at a road near historic downtown. I followed a small street back to the river, where there were some abandoned industrial buildings.