Best Tent Camping: Maryland. Evan L. Balkan
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surf of the mid-Atlantic off Ocean City, but can it compare to the crystal clarity of Lake Tahoe or the stupendous natural splendor of the Pacific off California’s Big Sur?
Believe it or not, I find that, invariably, my little Maryland manages to hold its own, thank you very much.
Perhaps an objective judge would find my favorable comparisons ridiculous, and I’ll concede that there’s something of a hometown bias going on, but I make my complimentary judgments without embarrassment. In fact, when I first visited Lake Tahoe and California’s Pacific Coast, for example, it was October, and while virtually everything I saw in beautiful northern California was brown and scrubby, my flight home gave me one more reminder why I love Maryland so much. During the airplane’s descent, I watched with joy as we glided over the spiraling kaleidoscope of color that is autumn in Maryland.
I once read that when you take into account all of Maryland’s tributaries, the state actually has more miles of shoreline than California. I find that claim dubious, though I suppose some favorable formulation will allow one to arrive at that conclusion. Of course, there are so many competing claims for superlatives—for instance, I’ve seen no fewer than three locales boasting that they are the world’s most isolated, populated spots—it seems that the veracity of claims of highest, deepest, wettest, oldest, and so on has to be measured against formulation and whatever particular tourist board is making the assertion. Nevertheless, it is indisputable that if you take the Chesapeake Bay, the Atlantic Ocean, and all the tributaries in the Bay watershed, you could spend a lifetime paddling the shores of all of them. Still, for my money, plunk me down in the mountains, and I’m content. Maryland’s west is full of great recreational activities, and the camping is no exception. Even in the crowded central corridor between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., camping and other recreational opportunities abound.
In short, Marylanders enjoy something of an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the great outdoors. So get out there and enjoy it.
—Evan Balkan
The Hilton Area of Patapsco Valley State Park
INTRODUCTION
How to Use This Guidebook
We at Menasha Ridge Press welcome you to Best Tent Camping: Maryland. Whether you’re new to this activity or you’ve been sleeping in your portable outdoor shelter over decades of outdoor adventures, please review the following information. It explains how we have worked with the author to organize this book and how you can make the best use of it.
:: THE RATINGS & RATING CATEGORIES
As with all of the books in the publisher’s Best Tent Camping series, this guidebook’s author personally experienced dozens of campgrounds and campsites to select the top 50 locations in this region. Within that universe of 50 sites, each was then ranked in the six categories described below. Each campground in this guidebook is superlative in its own way. For example, a site may be rated only one star in one category but perhaps five stars in another category. This rating system allows you to choose your destination based on the attributes that are most important to you. Though these ratings are subjective, they’re still excellent guidelines for finding the perfect camping experience for you and your companions.
Evaluating campgrounds requires some finesse, and in the end it is more of an art than a science. For a quick summary of what qualities make these campgrounds worth visiting, each is rated on six attributes: beauty, privacy, spaciousness, quiet, security, and cleanliness. A five-star scale is used. Not every campground in this book can pull a high score in every category. Sometimes a very worthwhile campground is located on terrain that makes it difficult to provide a lot of space, for example. In these cases, look for high marks in beauty or quiet to trump room to stretch out. In every case, the star rating system is a handy tool to help you pinpoint the campground that will fit your personal requirements.
| The site is ideal in that category. | ||
| The site is exemplary in that category. | ||
| The site is very good in that category. | ||
| The site is above average in that category. | ||
| The site is acceptable in that category. |
Beauty
This category includes the area that extends beyond the campground itself. Easy access to thick forest, clear streams, or stupendous views gives a campground a high ranking, regardless of whether the specific sites themselves are apt to awe you.
Privacy
This category refers to the ease with which campers in the next site can hear you and vice versa. Few campgrounds in this book don’t offer at least a small green buffer between sites, but the ranking in this category will give you a good idea of how much.
Spaciousness
Spaciousness refers to the physical dimensions of the campsites. If you are in a group, for example, this may be a top concern.
Quiet
This is a difficult category to measure because different times of the year, times of the week, and luck of the neighborly draw will determine your experience. However, every effort was made to talk with other campers, rangers, and park employees at each campground to try to get a fair sense of what visitors can expect any time of the year.
Security
DNR-run campgrounds are invariably safe. Almost all have a camp host and easy access to ranger offices. Park police regularly patrol state campgrounds as well. Some of the more remote campgrounds received a lower rating for safety simply because there might be no one around to deter crime, so you might be more vulnerable. Of course, this isolation is what attracts many people to these places. In general, Maryland campgrounds are very safe and secure.
Cleanliness
This is self-explanatory but refers to the amount of litter you might find at the campground. Overflowing trash cans and restrooms that didn’t look well maintained were cause for knocking off a few stars in this category.
:: THE CAMPGROUND PROFILE
Each profile contains a concise but informative narrative of the campground and individual sites. Not only is the property described, but readers can also get a general idea of the recreational opportunities available in the area and perhaps suggestions for touristy activities. This descriptive text is enhanced with three helpful sidebars: Ratings, Key Information, and Getting There (accurate driving directions that lead you to the campground from the nearest major roadway, along with GPS coordinates).
:: THE OVERVIEW MAP, MAP KEY, AND LEGEND
Use the overview map on the inside front cover to assess the exact location of each campground. The campground’s number appears not only on the overview map but also on the map key facing the overview map, in the table of contents, and on the profile’s first page. This book is organized by region, as indicated in the table of contents.
A map legend that details the symbols found on the campground-layout maps appears on the inside back cover.
:: CAMPGROUND-LAYOUT MAPS
Each profile includes a detailed map of campground sites, internal roads, facilities, and other key items.
:: GPS CAMPGROUND-ENTRANCE COORDINATES
Readers can easily access all campgrounds in this book by using the directions given and the overview map, which shows at least one major road leading into the area. But for