Walking Walrus Walks in Thurmont, Maryland

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1998

I wound up with a complication on Saturday morning dealing with returning a rental car, so I could not make a regular event on this pleasant enough Saturday. So I picked the Thurmont Maryland Year-Round event. Thurmont is a town at the base of the Catoctin Mountains, where the Presidential retreat Camp David is located. A beautiful spot; this year-round event is only in its second year of existence. The sponsoring Club, the Piedmont Pacers, held an event walk here in March 1996 which I participated in, and was quite memorable. This year-round event captured most of the highlights of that walk, and added a couple of spectacular surprises that actually made this year-round trail even better than the event trail of 1996, in my opinion.

The start point is at the Busy Bee Bakery, easily found right off US Route 15, a main north south route through central Maryland. A walk box was found in a shelf on a bakery cart, with all the information you would ever need to get started on the trail. My friend Roger joined my daughter Robin and I, along with the usual canine escort of Peaches and India. Also along was our newest canine family member, Cosmo, a 5 month old puppy just cleared to walk by the vet after getting all his shots. It was his first volksmarch! He was ready and eager to go, that is for sure! He had his big sisters with him to show him the ropes, and two of his favorite human caretakers and one good friend along to help him feel more comfortable. He was on too long a lead, probably 20 feet vs. the 6 foot long leads that his sisters had, but we had to make do with what we had.

After getting registered and equipped with directions and start cards, the walk passed a few fast food restaurants and a gas station before turning at a light and passing under route 15 and heading up a hill past a shopping center. The walk directions were on one side of a sheet of paper with a map of the route on the other. At the top of this hill a great view of the flatter landscape to the east was to be had, definitely pointed out in the directions.

We continued on this street through some nice new houses, then headed downhill on route 77 and along Hunting Creek into town, crossing under Route 15 once again. I don't think Peaches and Cosmo like going under those noisy highway underpasses!

Thurmont is 247 years old, and there are some beautiful old, historic, restored houses throughout the downtown area. Heading on Main Street for a few blocks, we turned at Altamont and two of the grander old brick homes that were explained nicely in the directions. Altamont took us up a hill past more grand houses and some beautiful old churches with a graveyard at the top of the hill. Crossing railroad tracks after a short, steep downhill, we then headed out of town on Emmitsburg Road. Roger and I noted some newly built houses for sale along this route, prices not bad, and the scenery superb! We past a few horse stables, and some of the equines were out grazing.

As we continued further and further out of town, the houses became further and further apart, and a more pastoral setting developed. With all the rain we have had lately, many spots had quite a bit of standing water, but luckily not on the trail! Emmitsburg Road became Albert Staub Road and at the end of this road we turned onto Roddy Creek Road and my most favorite part of the walk. Roddy Creek paralleled our route along this very rural road, and is a very picturesque trout stream with beautiful cliffs and rapidly moving water with lots of rapids. There were a few fishermen working the waters, but it is off-season in this catch and release stream. This part of the trail lasted for about 1 km, spectacularly ended with the only checkpoint on the trail, the Roddy Creek covered bridge, one of only three remaining covered bridges in Frederick County. I don't believe I had ever volksmarched through a covered bridge before! Information off the bridge was the requirement for the checkpoint, at the 5.2 km mark.

The trail took on a meandering country road type of feel for the next few kilometers. Rich farmland interspersed with forest glades and beautiful marshy meadows really hit the spot along Roddy and Apples Church Roads. We passed the historic Apples Church, a stone structure built back in 1826. Gradually we got into more suburban, modern housing and some factories.

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