McKeldin Falls and Old Quarry Lake

Patapsco Valley State Park

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On my own, I could go on a big hike, and Alltrails is no help in planning that. The McKeldin area caught my eye and I constructed a big loop around it, including a couple crossings of the North Branch Patapsco River that looked popular enough in the Strava heat map although there are no bridges here. I couldn't quite sort out where the parking for the Woodstock area end, so went for the McKeldin North area end instead. I was fully intending to use the pay lot, but having handed all my change to the attendant on Sunday, I had none to deal with there being no attendant on Tuesday. I was the first to pull into the free parking. Maybe I was just after the morning users finished. I was an hour later than expected because I let a long 2 lane exit draw me off onto the wrong bit of I-70 (thousands of miles from the good bit) and there's no way to turn around for the 3 miles to the traffic jam.

Map kiosk in the morning sun, across the busy road from the free parking.

I pondered the map kiosk, which highlighted a subset of the trails for use with mobility aides with an arm pedaled bicycle as example. From this location, Switchback Trail is the one. I turned to make a bee line for the nearest creek, Piney Run, on a smaller trail. A small flock of cardinals passed by, but didn't stick around for a picture. Why so mean, little cardinals?

Piney Run has a little flow but pools a bit.

Then I followed what is marked as River Trail around to South Branch Patapsco River. The deep prints along the path suggested the horse riders like to come this way.

A scruffy trail through a scruffy forest. This all puts me in mind of a flood plain.

A very pretty still green tree across Piney Run, almost to the river.

Fungal fruiting bodies contributing their own kind of green.

Arriving back on Switchback Trail, everything was a little more distinct with a very solid line of dirt marking the way. I followed it down the hill to a parking area. There's a few of these smaller parking areas within the park where picnic shelters are available.

A calm and lazy South Branch Patapsco River with bald eagle overlooking.

Once I hit pavement, I could just cross and be on trail again, but I wanted to take the McKeldin Rapids Trail past McKeldin Falls. That required following the road briefly to a small lot with another trailhead.

The river gets rougher.

The rough bit is McKeldin Falls.

The falls are short, but wide and pretty. The big pool at the bottom has a sign announcing that it is extremely dangerous and none are to go swimming and the beach suggests folks go anyway. It sure looks calm to me. It probably looks a little different in high water. The rapids below the pool look nice too, although I'm not sure they rise all the way to the designation.

McKeldin Rapids, I suppose.

More rapids around a bend? There's some rocks way down there, anyway.

Color! And looking back up the rocky bit of river.

The trail surprised me by wandering along the side of a bit of bedrock. It's been scuffed up a little, but it still doesn't look much like trail even if there's very distinct trail on either side.

Trail across a boulder.

Fall colors! They are here, but between the abnormally dry summer and the lack of a cold snap so far, the leaves are slow to change and uncoordinated.

A tiny cascade along the way.

The trees across the river.

A redbreast sunfish passes by. There's fish other than trout!

I found myself back on Switchback shortly before my first planned crossing of the North Branch Patapsco River. Would I be getting my feet wet? Well, not on the first one. The very distinct trail runs down to a line of clearly placed rocks that are quite usable stepping stones just before the confluence of the branches. There's another line of river on my map for me to cross, but at this level of flow, it is dry.

Stepping stones across the North Branch at the reflective lake-like confluence of the Patapsco River.

Between the two river lines, a sign greeted me to say I was now on the "Thru Trail" although I'm not sure what Thru Trail. Across the river, the Howard County "HoCo" Thru Trail runs nearish some active train tracks of the Old Man Line.

The well traveled Thru Trail near the corner of Baltimore, Carroll, and Howard Counties.

I stuck to this Thru Trail for a while. The majority of tracks were bicycle and I even saw a few.

The Canada geese took some notice of me as I passed.

When the Thru Trail turned away from the river, I turned onto a smaller trail that stayed nearby. It also has an option to cross the river, so I went over to see what that crossing was like. Nothing like as nice as the one I had used, although the shoe prints in the steep mud trail down to it suggest that someone uses it.

The ford is at a pipeline that serves as a trail route.

I had to take a second look to find the trail I was aiming at that does not cross, but it was clear enough when I found it.

A much smaller trail.

This lesser used trail seemed to be an excellent birding area. It was also falling off the edge into the river in spots and would take a steep route up and down in places, yet a sign here and there suggested it was official. It does not appear on the park map, so perhaps it is abandoned.

Red-bellied woodpecker.

Blue jay squawking.

The odd gully on the way.

Actual rock outcrop along the way, and mild navigation challenge for the trail.

A little climbing trail as there is a split. I went right, staying by the river.

I stopped for lunch in an area with loads of little birds that all ran off when I tried to take a picture of one or two. All I got was one blurry possible nuthatch.

Sometimes a little further from the river.

The river pulls the trees in.

I had climbed over enough trees to be happy about being back to the Thru Trail when I got there. At least the very last one was cut out for the trail.

Looking back on the Thru Trail and Patapsco River.

Then I hit the physical low point of my planned loop at a junction. This is really the meeting of an old road that accessed a quarry. Now it is the Quarry Trail and I turned up it.

Following Quarry Trail, an old road.

This trail has a little bit of a climb to it and the creek beside it has a few little cascades to show off. I was bumping into hikers again as I climbed.

Just a little dribble of water over a small cascade.

Some short plunges to a pool.

Streams of water over an old dam.

Some impressive old vines coiling up a tree that is somehow not dead.

The old quarry has filled in with water to become Old Quarry Lake. There's an Earth Cache here that details what buildings have rocks from various area quarries and details about the rocks. This one is supposed to have pink details, but I think they might oxidize away. There's a couple piles of blocks that never found a home and I wandered the trails around the lake poking at these some for the geocache.

Arriving at Old Quarry Lake.

Old Quarry Lake.

One of many autumn meadowhawks flitting about.

The forest around has some delicate fall color.

The trail to come.

As I came around the lake, I passed the back side of a sign pointing out that the area behind it was a hunting area. In less than clear language about who this applied to, it said that permits were required. I had come too far around the loop too late to have any desire to go back the way I'd come, so I powered on through. Later research found that besides the usual hunting license and perhaps tags, hunters are required to obtain a free permit when hunting in these designated areas within the park. Hikers are requested to wear bright colors, orange being really good. I had no orange, or even bright colors although some of my clothes were really abnormally blue. I passed through one of these hunting sites with each hike, but never saw anyone except one hunter with the slightest nod to wearing bright colors. Still, I would rather have had my orange Bigfoot Trail shirt along.

Lake overlook, a little full of trees for a view.

Quarried rocks piled for removal.

I headed up what is labeled the Chevrolet Trail just because it happens to pass the corpse of such a metal animal. The description of a geocache it passes suggested it is a mud fest to follow, especially the northern part, but for this season, everything was nice and dry. There's cut grass hills to pass and then steep trail down to the river once more.

A tiny ivy-leaved morning-glory.

The grassy hills of the landfill for a new environment.

There's another section of road as trail before things get steep.

The second crossing of North Branch Patapsco River did not have quite so nicely set rocks, but there were plenty of smaller ones and the water was very low, so I was once more able to walk across above the water.

I wandered a little downstream for an easy rock wander across North Branch Patapsco River.

It is certainly a pretty moment on the river.

Out on the rocks looking upstream.

This crossing put me back on Switchback Trail, which I would get to following eventually, but since I wanted to pass by an old geocache, I took it the wrong way to get to Plantation Trail instead for another bit of high travel.

Some very distinct trail at the bottom of the Plantation Trail.

High trail past trees and ferns.

Mystery marker by the old geocache, and it wouldn't be the only one.

The geocache was off trail, but I found an old trail bed to get much closer to it than the current trail goes. I kept following it back to the main trail and passed one of the paint blazes (red) before arriving back at the trail. I kept on following Plantation Trail past a junction with itself back to Switchback Trail. At a spur trail, I decided I had enough time to bag a minor peak and followed it to its end.

Up a hill to a rocky top.

Something like a view from the hill top.

There's a few evergreens in this forest too. I think the one in front is a Virginia pine and behind is a pitch pine.

The top of the hill was noisy. One can hear a major road, gun range, and active quarry from up there. And I was blaming the noise on the much further dam. I headed back down.

The view from the saddle between the hill and trail is actually the best, although one can almost see the road from here.

The other side of the saddle looks out over the river, too. It wraps around this hill.

Once back to Switchback, I took it around the back side of the parking lot and could have taken it all the way back to the sign kiosk where I started. After pondering the map, I decided I wanted the eastern section of the Spring Glen Trail instead.

A touch of bright red color on the Spring Glen Trail.

Getting overcast through the day, but never totally.

Leaving the glen.

The last little connector trail from the lower end of the loop of Spring Glen Trail to Switchback Trail was a little rough, but I passed a "foot traffic only" sign on the far side. Once back to Switchback, I climbed back up to the road and the car. Leaves were already a bit thin on many trees while others were steadfast in green, but there were a few out there being bright.

*photo album*




©2026 Valerie Norton
Written 27 Jan 2026