Scott's Run Is Open Again, and Now It Has a Second Way In

On the morning of Saturday, June 27, several hundred people ran a 4.95K course that began in a parking lot that wasn't open yet. They started at the future Scott's Run Nature Preserve annex lot, crossed westbound over the Georgetown Pike bridge, and headed south on a new paved trail along the Capital Beltway, running nearly to Lewinsville Road before turning back. Children ran a 495-meter version later in the morning.

The preserve the trail was built to reach was closed that day. Scott's Run had been shut since February 16 for sewer repairs, and it stayed shut for almost two more months. It reopened on Friday, August 21. This fall is the first season the reopened preserve and the new trail have been open together, and together they change how you get to Scott's Run. For years it was a place you drove to on Georgetown Pike. Now it sits at the north end of a 2.5-mile paved path from Lewinsville Road.

The trail began as a trade

The new access grew out of the Beltway project. In 2022, FFXnow reported that VDOT was offering a new park to make up for the 495 Express Lanes Northern Extension cutting into Scott's Run's edge. The same report said the preserve had become very popular during the pandemic and that its parking was already "stressed." VDOT's proposal included a 25-space lot, four of them ADA-accessible, and a 5-foot-wide sidewalk.

Four years later, that plan has mostly been built. The express lanes opened in November 2025. The trail and the annex lot were both built under the roughly $660 million 495 NEXT public-private partnership between the Commonwealth of Virginia and Transurban. The parking problem that FFXnow described in 2022 led to a second way into the preserve, one that doesn't depend on the lots along Georgetown Pike.

Why the preserve kept closing

The second way in arrived just as the preserve finished a long run of closures. FFXnow reported that 2026 was the third spring in a row that hikers and trail runners lost Scott's Run while the county worked on sewer infrastructure. The cause runs under the preserve. Siphon pipes carry wastewater from Fairfax County under the Potomac River to D.C. Water's treatment system. As the McLean Ledger summarized the county's project page, the aging pipes posed risks to public health and to the Potomac Gorge, which the Fairfax County Park Authority calls one of the rarest biological environments in the mid-Atlantic.

This year's closure ran longer than first announced. The Park Authority's February notice closed the east and west parking areas and every trail, and it expected the preserve to stay closed through July 4.

The Department of Public Works and Environmental Services relined three deteriorating siphon pipes inside the preserve using cured-in-place pipe lining. Dranesville District Supervisor Jimmy Bierman announced the reopening on X and said the work ensures "safe, reliable sewer infrastructure for the next 50 years." The preserve is open daily from sunrise to sunset, and admission is free.

Where the new trail meets your neighborhood

The 495 trail is 10 feet wide and paved. It runs parallel to I-495 between Lewinsville Road and Live Oak Drive, behind the new noise walls. The noise walls separate it from the traffic, and the path crosses the Beltway in three places. That makes it an east-west connector as well as a north-south route. From south to north, VDOT and the 495 NEXT team list these access points:

1. Lewinsville Road, the southern end of the trail, with a crossing over the Beltway.
2. Old Dominion Drive, the second Beltway crossing, about midway.
3. Georgetown Pike, the third crossing, at the new bridge next to the annex lot.
4. Live Oak Drive, which the April 2026 project newsletter lists as a pedestrian access point at the northern end.

VDOT says the trail links to Scott's Run and to the Fairfax County Park Authority's trail system. Our sources didn't show exactly where the paved path meets the preserve's dirt trails. Plan to find that junction yourself on your first trip. Transurban's Terry Suehr described the project as providing "new access to Scott's Run Nature Preserve."

The lot that's still on its way

The annex lot hasn't opened yet. It sits at the southeast corner of the I-495 and Georgetown Pike interchange and has 25 spaces. The April 2026 newsletter also lists ADA accessibility, bike racks, bike repair facilities and picnic seating. The newsletter expected construction across the corridor to finish "this summer." In June, VDOT and FFXnow both said the lot would open "in the coming months." As of early October, we haven't found any announcement that it has opened.

The lot's design matters because of the sidewalk that comes with it. FFXnow reported that a 5-foot-wide sidewalk on Balls Hill Road will lead from the lot into the preserve. On race day, organizers sent drivers to Holy Trinity Church at 850 Balls Hill Road and had them walk a short distance to the lot. With 25 spaces, the annex adds a small amount of parking. Its larger effect is a new entrance on the preserve's Beltway side, connected to both the paved trail and Balls Hill Road.

What you reach once you're inside

Scott's Run is worth the trip once you're through the gate. The Park Authority's trail map marks Scott's Run Waterfall, the Potomac River shoreline and the Stubblefield Falls Overlook. The named routes are the Burling Cabin Trail, Laurel Ridge Trail, Oak Trail, Parking Lot Connector Trail, Potomac Heritage Trail, Stubblefield Falls Overlook Trail and Trillium Hollow Trail. The map dates to 2015, before the highway work and the new annex. Use it for the named routes, but don't rely on it for current junctions near the Beltway edge.

The preserve's original parking hasn't changed. The county still calls the Georgetown Pike lots the east and west parking areas. If you live near the trail's southern access points, you can now get to the preserve without using either lot.

The next scheduled interruption

This open stretch has a likely end date. The siphon project has a second phase, which DPWES is now designing. It will reline the pipes that run under the Potomac into Carderock Recreation Area in Maryland. Construction is expected to begin in fall 2027, pending a National Park Service permit. The county hasn't said whether Phase 2 will close Scott's Run again.

That leaves about a year of open trails before the permit decision and the start date are due. If Phase 2 does affect the preserve, the paved route from Lewinsville Road to Georgetown Pike would still be there. Scott's Run Waterfall and Stubblefield Falls are open now, from sunrise to sunset, at 7400 Georgetown Pike.

A new trail connection a few streets away can affect a house's value, and comparable sales don't show that right away. If your home is near Lewinsville Road, Old Dominion Drive or Balls Hill Road and you want to know how buyers are weighing this kind of access, Jennifer Fang Homes can help. Request your free home valuation, and Jennifer will walk you through what the numbers show for your street.