My guilt for not covering many parks in Maryland motivated me to take a few day mini-vacation and try my luck at finding some parks. I used a summary guidebook to find the Avalon and Hollofield sections of Patapsco State Park, near Baltimore.

There are five sections to this park, located mostly south of Baltimore. The guidebook and street signs were not adequate to get me to the entrances. With perseverance, I did find my way. The other sections are the Hilton, McKeldin, and Daniel's Parks. The ranger stations were closed, but I could (barely) read these other names from maps located inside the stations. My apologies if I have misspelled them.

I did not find any long trails in either of these parks, but there were several smaller ones that were either multi-use or solely pedestrian. These could be linked together with a little creativity and some running on pavement. The terrain was mostly flat for long stretches, then several long and winding hilly regions. The width of the trails varied from barely one foot to as wide as three feet. There is a shooting range near one of the trails, and it sounded as if I would be the next target. I was reassured by a regular park user that the sound travels farther than the bullets.

There were amenities in both parks, but not all of them were open (it was past Labor Day) during the middle of the day in the middle of the week. Again, there weren't any park personnel around to ask any further questions, so I do not know if more of them are open on the weekends. There was a fair amount of parking, but in many small sections as opposed to one or two large lots. There were no fees at the time I entered the parks.

All in all, I give the two sections I visited a "2" Muddy Shoes rating. The pluses are the condition of the trails, no entrance fees, and facilities. The negatives are the length of the trails, poor directions/signage from the major roadways, and multi-usage. For all I know, I may have missed the better parts of the park, but I could not get directions to them. They were not clearly marked on any of my state road maps or bicycle maps.