I'd seen a mention of a Rail Trail in Mt. Airy, MD so Carl and I decided to check it out. We met at Conchetta's Bistro to fuel up (where I had the Big Gulp cup o' coffee and Carl debated the derivation of the name Chip with the owner and some patrons) and then walked down Main Street to the Old Train Depot where the trail head is located.
The web site made it sound like 2.5 miles of a 3.9 mile long rail spur had been converted to a trail, but reality is that only the .5 mile stretch from Main St. to Watkins Park has been finished - a nice segment where they cut through the hills to bring the rails to downtown Mt. Airy, but short. So, we followed the walking path around the park and turned it into a 2 miler.
To get some additional mileage, we headed out to find and explore the Gillis Falls area, an interesting green blob on the map that appeared to have a trail system. After some false turns, and a bit of web searching, we cut through some back roads past the Woodbine Glider airpark (where many years ago Carole and I had a gilder ride as a present from her Dad) we came to the Carroll Equestrian Center parking area that serves as a trailhead.
The trail system is essentially unmarked and consists of a large number of random trails that horse people, ATV people and beer drinking/bonfire lighting teenagers have created. Since we've had almost a foot of rain in the past month, there were many bogs and mud holes to detour around and we really had no idea where we were most of the time.
But we found our way down to the main path that parallels the river and goes by a dozen or so abandoned cabins that were once part of a church camp. We made our way over to the river, which is more of a stream, after passing by a very large bonfire site where many beer cans had been sacrificed to the flames.
A hike back up hill and we returned to the start, only about 2.5 miles for this one to reach almost 5 miles for the day.
Comments