Despite living only minutes from the Maryland border, I had never heard of Green Ridge State Forest until I decided to visit it. Located in the mountains of western Maryland, Green Ridge is one of the state’s largest forests and feels surprisingly remote compared with the heavily populated areas closer to Washington and Baltimore. With miles of trails, campsites, overlooks, and forest roads, it turned out to be a great place for a day of hiking.
One of my first stops was this overlook near the park headquarters. From here, the forest stretches across the ridges of western Maryland, giving you a much different view of the state than you might expect if you’ve only traveled around the Chesapeake Bay or the Washington metropolitan area.
The landscape here is part of Maryland’s Appalachian region, with long forested ridges separated by narrow valleys and streams. It may not have the dramatic mountains found farther west in the United States, but the endless layers of wooded hills give Green Ridge a wilderness character that I wasn’t expecting to find in Maryland.
A friend who enjoys photography joined me for the hike and took this photo of me carrying my giant pack through the forest. This wasn’t just unnecessary weight for a casual day hike. At the time I was preparing for two much bigger adventures. The beard was growing out in preparation for my upcoming trip to Afghanistan, while the heavy backpack was part of my training for an eventual climb of Denali. Even while exploring somewhere close to home, I was getting myself ready for trips on the other side of the world.
One of the highlights of the hike was finding this brightly colored eastern box turtle near a creek. Box turtles are common throughout much of the eastern United States, and I actually kept one as a pet when I was growing up, so coming across one in the forest brought back some memories. I saw quite a bit of wildlife during the hike, although most of it disappeared into the woods before I could get close enough for a photograph.
This little fish was one of the stranger things I spotted along the way. Unfortunately, my photography skills weren’t quite fast enough and the photo came out blurry, so I was never able to confidently identify the species. It appeared to be a small bottom-dwelling fish resting among the rocks of the stream. Whatever it was, finding it was another reminder that some of the most interesting wildlife on a hike can be easy to overlook.
Another interesting feature of Green Ridge is its unusually dry climate compared with much of Maryland. The surrounding mountains create one of the driest areas in the state, allowing plants to grow here that you might not immediately associate with Maryland. One of the most surprising examples is the eastern prickly pear cactus. I wasn’t able to find one during this hike, but it gives me something to look for if I return.
I did find plenty of these large yellow flowers covered with bees. Between the dry ridges, streams, rocky terrain, and thick forests, Green Ridge had considerably more variety than I expected when I first decided to spend a day hiking here.
Green Ridge is also home to much larger wildlife, including black bears and wild turkeys, although none cooperated with my camera during this trip. The box turtle remained my best wildlife encounter, leaving me to finish the page with this much less impressive yellow jacket instead.
Green Ridge isn’t one of Maryland’s famous tourist destinations, and that was part of what I liked about it. I went there expecting little more than a local hike and ended up discovering a side of Maryland I hadn’t really seen before. For me, it was also a training ground for adventures far beyond the state, making an otherwise simple day in the woods part of a much bigger chapter of my travels.
