Doggin' Maryland: The 10 Best Places To Hike With Your Dog In The Free State

 

1. Catoctin Mountain Park
What are you looking for on an outing with your dog - a variety of short, peaceful hikes? A strenuous , multi-hour trek that will have your dog sleeping the whole ride home? Memorable views? Catoctin has them all. If it's good enough for the Presidential dogs, it should be good enough for our dogs.

2. Tuckahoe State Park
The place to go for a hike with your dog on the Eastern Shore. Your dog won't find any trails that are more paw-friendly than the grassy meadows and sandy dirt of the Adkins Arboretum.

3. Robert E. Lee Park
With its rough-around-the-edges look, Robert E. Lee radiates plenty of canine charm. It feels as if dogs are welcome here and the 456-acre park has evolved into a prime destination for dog walkers of all sorts. Looking for a quick walk and a swim? Lake Roland can't be beat for deep water dog paddling. After a half-day's outing with your dog on the hiking trails? Cross the light rail line and the trail system explodes into a maze of hard-packed dirt passageways through the woods. Just need to let the dog romp with some buddies? Robert E. Lee Park may as well be Rover E. Lee Park. You'll find more dogs per hour here than any park in the Baltimore area.

4. Susquehanna State Park
The first European to set eyes on the Susquehanna River was English explorer John Smith. He was suitably impressed. "Heaven and earth," he wrote, "seemed never to have agreed better to frame a place for man's commodious and delightful habitation." Dog owners might readily concur. At Susquehanna State Park you can test trails in the hills that will leave man and dog panting or stroll along the shady Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal towpath, as level and pleasant an excursion as you can take with your dog.

5. Harpers Ferry National Historic Park
No place in Maryland packs as much scenic wonder and historical importance for your dog into such a small area as Harpers Ferry National Historic Park where the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers join forces.

6. Downs Memorial Park
Looking for a dog-friendly park? At Downs Memorial Park there is a "pet parking" stall outside the information center. A dog drinking bowl is chained to a human water fountain. The walking is fine too. Some five miles of easy hiking through woodlands of oak and maple and holly and gum. Best of all is Dog Beach, an isolated, scruffy 40-yard stretch of sand where you can let the dog off leash for canine aquatics in the Chesapeake Bay. The wave action is just right for dogs and there is enough sand for digging. Need we say more?

7. Sugarloaf Mountain
The quarter-million human visitors aren't the only ones who appreciate this wonderful private gift to the public - dogs love these mountain trails as well.

8. Assateague National Seashore
You can bring your dog here to swim in the ocean in the middle of the summer. Nuff said!

9. Swallow Falls State Park
This is the best single-trail park in Maryland. Even though dogs can't use the trail between Memorial Day and Labor Day it still rates in the Top Ten. It's that good.

10. Gunpowder Falls State Park - Hereford
At Hereford the canine hiker can find any length or type of hike to set tails wagging. Long out-and-back walks through a rugged gorge (this is Baltimore?) can be combined with many side trails that scamper up the valley slopes. You'll find plenty of great canine swimming holes in the river, fed by outflows from the Prettyboy Dam. You can even take the dog right to the base of the dam on a narrow trail drenched in mountain laurel.

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