Dear PoPville – Any Good Recommendations for Places to Walk/Hike off-leash with our Dog?

Photo by PoPville flickr user theupper

Dear PoPville,

We adopted a wonderful year-old dog in October (shout out to Humane Society for being great) and she needs a lot of exercise. We live near the Upshur dog park, but unfortunately our pooch is shy around large numbers of other dogs and after several attempts now refuses even to walk down the block in the direction of the park. Neither of us are runners, but we like to walk and hike a lot, and she gets her best exercise by dashing madly up and down a quiet section of trail off-leash in front of us. We often take her walking off-leash in the northern section of Rock Creek Park where she sometimes meets and does fine with other off-leash dogs singly or in small groups. But, we’ve already explored many of the more distant trails in Rock Creek Park and would love to take the opportunity to exercise our dog and explore other parts of the city!

Any recommendations on good places to walk/hike off-leash (read: away from roads and cars, not highly trafficked with other dogs but popular enough to feel safe) with our dog?