WOW!! What a Great Walk!

So-I thought I’d go for a walk.  The Scenic Rivers Land Trust folks were hosting a walk in the woods this morning on the South River Greenway.  The Greenway is all the land on the Crownsville Hospital grounds on the far side of I-97.  They’re schedule offered bird walks, a strenuous hike, a walk to an old mill, and a family walk.

The first bird walk was at 7:30 a.m.  I don’t do 7:30 a.m. on Saturday mornings.  Fortunately, they had one at 8:30 a.m.  That one and the walk to the old mill would be just about right to explore this new area. (Keep reading — this experience is worth learning about – photos, too.)
Entering the hospital grounds at Marbury Road, I was directed to park near the water treatment plant.  I met the first friendly face of the morning.  I introduced myself to Elaine Cromwell.  We laughed about our common names.  Elaines aren’t used to meeting their names.   It got weird when she introduced me to her grandson, Nick.  My son’s name is Nick.  They’re the same age…

Anyway, after a short walk over the I-97 Farm Road bridge I came to the edge of a beautiful meadow and a trail head.  Jennifer Troy and other SRLT volunteers were signing in guests, selling t-shirts, and offering up coffee, doughnuts and fruit.   The first bird walks were already off.

I would walk with David Curson, Director of DC/MD Audubon and a group of about ten birders and walkers.  I love birds, and I can identify quite a few by sight, but David and several others really knew their stuff.  They identified birds by call.  Yellow-rumped warblers,  kinglets, gnat-catchers, towhees, wrens and more filled the air with their songs.  We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a few.

The one to two mile walk took us through fabulous terrain: steep slopes, streams, ponds with terrific exemplars of beech, birch, oak, and more.  The land has a beautiful pond that in a few weeks will be covered with water lilies.

We returned to the welcome area.  Unfortunately, we had tarried a little too long, and I missed the walk to the old mill.   I wasn’t ready to go home so I joined Karyn Molines leading the family walk.

Karyn is a walking encyclopedia of the kingdoms.     She’d handed out magnifying glasses and boxes to help us get a better look.  Karyn explained tree identification.  To the delight of the children and adults on the walk we turned over logs and found insects, spiders, and land relatives of our beloved blue crab. She had us taste several plants.  After the bird walk, sampling plants that tasted like mustard and onions just made me hungry for a hot dog.

Karyn could identify any plant we asked about.  She got really excited about a stand of pretty little wildflowers related to strawberries and roses.  Since I wasn’t taking notes, I managed to not remember the name.  The mayapples were out.

We ended the family walk at a bubbly brook complete with a waterfall.  Walkers with little children, whose curiosity was refreshing, turned back to retrace their path out of the Greenway.  Karyn offered to continue with the rest of us.

I, for one, still wanted to see the old mill.  Off we went hiking along stream shores, tromping through bright green but soggy fields of skunk cabbage.  Our trail was marked with green streamers on trees as we crossed water and climbed then descended hills.

When you don’t know where you’re going, the trip came seem mighty long.  I knew we wouldn’t get lost, but I did wonder where we were.  Thanks to Karyn, and another hiker named Peggy, we stayed assuredly on course – until we ran out of green streamers.

The streamers just stopped. No signs, no nothing.  We had it on advice from another group of hikers to keep going with the skunk cabbage on our right and the steep hill on our left.

We had plenty to see including the work of very industrious beavers.  They had felled one tree that was about ten inches in diameter and done some serious gnawing on much larger trees.  They had quite a project going.

We kept on, skunk cabbage right, steep slope left then Karyn spotted it.  We were told we would find an old earthen dam and that the mill would be about 100 yards beyond.  We found it. The dam had been built to create the millrace – a narrowed channel of the stream to provide accelerated waterpower for the mill.  The spot was beautiful.

After admiring the dam, we moved on and there it was – the mill.  We guessed it was from the 1800′s.   All that was left was the foundation made of the local stone – ironstone, I think, and, the real treasure – two large millstones used in grinding.  The foundation scribed a fairly large building.   One can only imagine who had built it and what went on here.  The surrounding trees were not very old – another clue?

Having found our destination, we turned back.  Fortunately, the temporal delusion that makes the trip back from a new place seem shorter that the trip out held true.   While the walk was up and down and through some slog, we made it back to the meadow and then back to the entrance in good time.

New Hiker Friend Colby relaxes on the trail

After some water and the best tasting apple I’d ever eaten, I bid good-bye to Karyn and my fellow hikers.  I had a little more of a walk to the car.  At this point, I had walked for about five and a half hours.  I had some nasty looking shoes, and I could tell my legs would be having a discussion with me in the morning about this activity.  Still, it was worth it.  Congratulations to the Scenic Rivers Land Trust for a wonderful event and thank you for their continued efforts to open up this beautiful land to the public.  Please visit their website to learn more about their work – and consider getting involved.