Winter Hiking to Cascade Falls, Patapsco Valley State Park

Snow seemed to frequent mid-Atlantic region a lot more often for the winter of 2020-21. After some snowfall early February, I was again allured by nature covered in white. This time, I headed for Patapsco Valley State Park outside Baltimore.

Cascade Falls

Patapsco Valley State Park had many regions that were detached from each other. For today, I visited its most popular Avalon region. I intended to hike the most popular trail of the park, Cascade Falls Trail, thinking the waterfall would look stunning when decorated by white snow.
In winter months the park charged $2/4 per vehicle (in-state / out-of-state) as entrance fee. An honor system was in effect at the Avalon entrance.

While the park would occasionally close due to inclement weather, the workers did a great job at snow removal and kept it open. Unfortunately, while normally one could drive all the way to Orange Grove / Swinging Bridge, which was right below Cascade Falls, the road was closed during my visit, so I had to park farther away at the picnic ground.

Here’s GPS tracking:

 
Road

There were patches of water (little of which was ice) along this road. The park officials probably closed this road to traffic for safety concerns but to me it seemed like an overact. As a result, I started my journey walking through this section of road. This closure added 2.6km each-way of walking to my trip.

 
Creek

At about 1pm, I reached the start of trail and headed into the woods.

 
Trail

Snowfall wasn’t as huge as mid-December 2020, with just enough snow to blanket everything in white. As a result, I didn’t think any specialty gear was needed for this excursion into the woods.

Cascade Falls was only 250m from trailhead, soon I heard its roaring water.

 
Cascade Falls
With long (left) and wide (right) focals.

Cascade Falls

Might be a bit underwhelming compared to the other waterfalls that I’d seen. Its popularity probably resulted from its ease of access.

After leaving Cascade Falls, I decided to take the longer loop trail back to the trailhead, venturing deeper into the woods.

 
Trail

 
Creek
Upstream from Cascade Falls, the water seemed so quiet here.

Water Crossing
With a few exposed rocks this wasn’t that difficult.

Towards the latter half of the loop the trail forked into many branches in the woods. While most of them still led back to the trailhead, it’s easy to get lost.

 
 
Trail

 
Forest

About 75 minutes after I started, I finished the loop and was back at the trailhead.
To head back to the parking lot, I decided to cross Patapsco River via the swinging bridge here and followed the trail on the north bank of river.

 
Swinging Bridge

Patapsco River

Right across the river were the remains of an old flourmill factory. I checked it out together with the railway tucked behind it.

Remains of Patapsco Flourmill Factory

First built in 1856 and grew to “the largest flour mill east of Minneapolis” by 1900. River and railway surrounding the factory provided easy transport of materials and products. The mill was destroyed in 1905 by fire.

 
Railway
Old Main Line Subdivision

 
 
 
Trail

Park officials didn’t perform snow removal on this trail. Yet snow was thin here and didn’t post much a safety hazard.

Towards the end of trail there’s a small pond called “Lost Lake” that’s mostly frozen. Park officials taped it off to keep people off the thin ice.

 
Lost Lake
From my camera (left) and drone (right).

 
Patapsco River
Around Gun Road bridge.

9.3km of walking later, I was back with my car.

I carried my drone with me, and I thought an aerial view of this valley covered in snow would be spectacular. With low-lying clouds (and even flakes of snow) in the air, the valley felt secluded to the outside world.

Patapsco Valley

Overlooking Patapsco Valley

Overlooking Lost Lake
The lake’s mostly frozen. The wrinkles of the ice looked like lightning from above.

 
Surface of Lost Lake

Lost Lake

Overlooking Patapsco River

And here’s a video of my drone flying down and up Patapsco River. I had hoped to reach all the way to the swinging bridge upstream, but my drone’s control signal wouldn’t go that far in this obstructing valley terrain.

That concluded my visit to Patapsco Valley for the day.
END

Winter Hiking to Cascade Falls, Patapsco Valley State Park by Huang's Site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.