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Maryland: If you're looking for solitude, the silence is deafening at Savage River State Forest
Sunday, April 09, 2000 By Virginia Phillips
SAVAGE RIVER STATE FOREST, Md. -- A visit to western Maryland's unspoiled Savage River State Forest offers ample payback for an easy 2 1/2-hour drive from Pittsburgh. It is a spectacular and private paradise -- and an ideal spot to watch the curtain rising on spring.
New Germany State Park. Campsites: $12. For people over age 62, Sunday through Thursday, $6.
Big Run State Park. Unimproved sites (pit toilets and tap water), $8.
Savage River. Primitive sites (no toilets or water; may have picnic table, fire ring), $5.
Savage River Web site, maintained by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources: www.dnr.state.md.us Current maps/information. Rental of Nordic ski equipment: 301-689-8515. Savage River State Forest: 301-895-5759.
Brand-new foliage will be airbrushed in chartreuse on the still dun-colored landscape. You will be very likely to see not-so-wild wild turkeys bobbing along, almost within touching distance, curious fawns being nudged along by their wary moms and ruffed grouse exploding out of ground cover so abruptly they will make you jump.
Trout fishermen became part of the landscape with the opening of the season on March 25. Spring is peak fishing time for native trout and stocked rainbow trout in the watershed's clean streams.
If you go in mid-May, expect to find fiddleheads beginning to uncoil, trillium flashing white on sunny slopes and, toward the end of the month, mountain laurel opening their intricate clusters. A wildflower walk is scheduled for May 20.
On a visit one midsummer weekday, my husband and I had hiked a couple of hours and paused by the reservoir to watch the balletic motions of a silent angler. It hit us then that this was the first human to shatter our notion of having Eden to ourselves.
Solitude is not hard to come by in these woods. Often the only sound is the sizzle of water over river rocks and swoosh of wind through tall trees. Hikers are almost as likely to spot a bear as another person.
Nature, Maryland-style, if on a less majestic scale than in Canada, is equally pristine. These 50,000 acres of state woodland, the largest facility in the state's forest and park system, protects a 105-square-mile strategic watershed. The region offers many a spring-fed stream, including Poplar Lick, a true continental divide waterway that empties into the Potomac.
The forest's charms, though not yet widely discovered by Pittsburghers, draw Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia residents who come to escape summer heat and enjoy winter. It has appeal for hunters and fishermen too. Turkey hunting season is April 18 through May 16. (Of course there is no hunting in the park itself.)
Eco-tourism works
Maryland's state forest and park system embraces a concept that it, like more exotic locales, calls eco-tourism. What it means is well-tended facilities and trails and signage designed not to intrude upon the natural landscape.
Trash receptacles throughout the forest have been banned, with the exception of a Dumpster for the use of campers in New Germany State Park. The expectation is that visitors will pack out what they bring in.
Astonishingly, with the exception of a few Styrofoam plates and beer bottles seen in one primitive campsite, the forest, even in summer, appears trash-free.
Rules are few but enforced. Gasoline-powered boating is not permitted (though snowmobiling is), which means water sites, at least, are quiet.
Native trout attest to the cleanliness of the water.
Overnight in paradise
It's easy to gorge on beauty all alone in these woods, but if you want to be more sociable, state park facilities provide options for groups from camping and hiking to mountain bike forays for hardy seekers of off-road adventure.
New Germany State Park, five miles south of Grantsville, offers more amenities than any other site within the forest. Visitors entering through an arcade of hemlocks come upon an expanse of water. This is a 13-acre lake with a small life-guarded beach, rowboats and fishing. The day we visited, one family fishing lakeside had collected a string of bluegills for supper.
The lake dates from the mid-1800s, when the region's Poplar Lick Run was dammed to generate power for sawmills and gristmills. Those millstones ornament the parking lot that serves the park's day visitors.
Nestled among tall red oak, maple and hemlocks are 39 good-sized campsites. Nearby 11 log cabins are fully furnished and equipped with fireplaces. In keeping with low-key tourism, quiet time past 11 p.m. is camp policy, so nights are serene. The loudest people noises to be heard are kids hallooing each other through the woods and early morning shrieks as people brave the lake's cold water. Bathhouse facilities are top-notch--clean, new and boasting enviable hot showers.
The park is a hub for eight trails of varying difficulty -- including 10 miles of groomed Nordic ski trails in winter. New Germany Park offers nature talks and a resident historian. Bill Martin, son of the park's first forest ranger, conducts tours on summer weekends in which he recounts local history of this area, which survived at various times under the flags of England, the United States and the Confederacy. George Washington clear cut the white pine in this region and floated logs downstream to the Potomac to build a rebel navy.
Abutting the forest is 300-acre Big Run Park, offering 30 campsites equipped with picnic tables, fire rings, pit toilets and tap water. Many of these are situated stream-side under towering trees. Registered campers at less improved sites are welcome to shower and swim at New Germany Park.
Canoeing, kayaking and fishing take place at the Savage River Reservoir, though on a summer weekday, a handful of sportsmen seemed to have the 230 acres of water to themselves.
The reservoir park is the trailhead for the Monroe Run Trail -- six rhododendron- and mountain laurel-thicketed miles crisscrossing Monroe Run, with a scenic overlook and a chance to see very old trees in a never-logged area.
The forest offers trails ranging from Sunday stroll to huff-'n'-puff. Big Savage Trail is the granddaddy in length, a 17-mile hike following the ridge of Big Savage Mountain. Top elevation is at St. John's Rock, a panoramic viewing point, at 2,500 feet. The access to the trail is a woods road used by General Braddock during the French and Indian War.
Mountain bikers are welcome on logging roads and on all trails except Big Savage and Monroe Run.
If the word Savage, as in River, and Big Savage, as in Mountain, evokes nature red in tooth and claw, it is a misnomer. Savage was the name of the region's first surveyor, and many places were named after him. And although the Savage River hosted the world whitewater championships a few years ago, the turbo flow required for the race gushed out on cue when park managers orchestrated a release of water from the dam upstream.
Pure nature
For adventure not so tweaked and predictable, the region offers other possibilities. Camping at "primitive" sites --meaning no bathrooms and no water supply, but usually picnic tables and fire rings -- is allowed by permit along hiking and recreational vehicle trails.
We wanted to know how rugged the ORV ("Only Recreational Vehicles") trails really are, so we put a Buick LeSabre to the test on the Poplar Lick ORV. The Buick negotiated deep ruts and plank bridges all right, but was stopped cold at one of the trail's crossings of the "Lick." The water, only inches deep in summer, wasn't the problem. But the stream's abrupt banks would have disemboweled a low-slung passenger sedan. The preview was tempting. This would reward the effort by Jeep or mountain bike.
For an on-foot look at nature and wildlife undisturbed, you may hike but may not camp in 2,700 acres of forest designated as Big Savage Wildland.
According to veteran Ranger Joseph Stevens, the forest's black bears, population 300 "and growing," are sighted occasionally. He says the bears remain too shy to pester campers but give fits to local farmers by steamrolling oat fields and plundering beehives. The region hosts lots of rattlesnakes and copperheads, apparently as shy as the bears, as no bite has yet been reported.
The region remains free of development, because most of it is state land. In contrast to Deep Creek, a high-profile boating/ski resort half an hour south, Savage River offers no downhill skiing, no power-boating or jet-skis, no movie theaters, trendy restaurants or malls. Yet it maintains its quiet appeal.
The New Germany campsites are fully booked weekends through the summer. The most popular sites must be booked in advance, even for during the week. Cabins must be reserved months ahead for popular fall leaf-peeping and holiday dates.
There is good clean fun 10 minutes from New Germany Park at the Grantsville "mall" on Route 219. Check out the Dollar Store, the supermarket or Hilltop, a colorful fast-food palace with an extensive menu. Restaurants in Grantsville include Penn Alps, featuring regional food and crafts and The Casselman, a historic hotel serving country/Amish food. The Casselman was built in 1824 to serve travelers on the National Road, which began as an Indian trail and is now Alternate Route 40. Nearby is the Casselman stone arch bridge, built in 1813, at a site where Washington and Braddock in 1755 forded the river en route to their disastrous encounter with the French at Fort Duquesne.
Don't miss BJ's, a store one mile north of Big Run State Park on Savage River Road. You can rent a canoe, register a campsite, get a fishing license, gawk at a stuffed wild boar, acquire tent pegs, a six-pack, a can of Dinty Moore, firewood, and knowledgeable advice from owner Jim Minogue.
Virginia Phillips is a free-lance writer who lives in Mt. Lebanon.
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