Little Bennett Regional Park is contained within the Agricultural Reserve of Montgomery County, Maryland, part of a 90-thousand-acre sweep of protected agricultural-use and natural areas. We made our basecamp at the campground at Little Bennett which, due to COVID, was taking strict care to exceed requirements to protect campers and staff. We felt safe the entire week camping in a dispersed area. The restrooms were airy, sanitized, very clean. The camp store staff were over-the-top welcoming and they maintained every precaution to ensure the health of crew and campers. It was the break my sister and I very much needed where we could relax and explore the area without concerns for crowds and the dangers of exposure to the virus. We spent our first and last day exploring the park's trails. In between, we walked another section of the C&O Canal from Carderock to Great Falls.
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| 6.5 loop of Little Bennett Regional Park |
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| Metasiltstone outcrop |
On our first day at Little Bennett we walked a 6.5 mile loop from our campsite down to to Little Bennett Creek then along the Western Piedmont Trail to the Hyattstown Mill. We returned via the Bennett Ridge Trail to compete the loop. It was the first day of an ungodly heat wave that pushed temps up to 100 and the humidity brutish. During the hottest part of our return walk Laura counted 40 Allegheny Mound-Builder Ant mounds along the Bennett Ridge Trail. These immense ant mounds provide the colonies inside with cooling systems and solar heating to protect eggs and food from extremes in temperature. Witnessing these huge mounds distracted us from our slow, sluggish pace. Finally back in the campground by mid-afternoon we visited the camp store for a cold drink, then on to our site and long, cool showers at the bath house.
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| Allegheny Mound Builder Ants |
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| St. Johns Wort. |
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| Black-eyed Susan in a pasture-meadow |
Maryland summers are famously hot and humid so we weren't surprised by the days of heat, but what did surprise us was the intensity of the humidity. This was a far cry from our planned hike in England for this week, cancelled due to COVID. I imagined the mountain breezes of the Lake District and the Coastal Path bathed in cool ocean mists. Oh well. Thanks, COVID.
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| Drink and cool down break! |
The trails cover a large portion of three historical agricultural villages, long gone now and reverted to forest and wildflower meadows. We were especially impressed with the complex of dry and wet meadows, all formerly pasture for cattle and fields for tobacco. I am encouraged to see - these past years exploring our region - how many parks and public spaces are managing old ag landscapes for meadows. This is critical habitat in the Mid-Atlantic and the Piedmont meadow and prairie ecosystems are especially vulnerable to development. Kudos to Little Bennett Park for its management of these crucial ecosystems for birds, insects, native plants, and wildlife.
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| Hyattstown Mill, circa 1960. |
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| The mill is now a (closed) arts center |
Our thought-experiment for the hike, like counting mounds, helped us take our minds off the heat. "What places do we know today - shopping districts, neighborhoods, entire towns - might be the wilderness of the future?" As we hiked past the sites of old mills, barns, and once-busy road crossings, we wondered aloud how places we have come to know as centers of human busyness might someday be forests and fields. I was looping David Byrne's Nothing But Flowers in my head over and over and over, smiling the whole way...
There was a factory, now there are mountains and rivers
We caught a rattlesnake, now we have something for dinner
There was a shopping mall, now its all covered in flowers
There's just this paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower
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| Trail post |
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| Indian Pipe, Monotropa uniflora |
Indian Pipe sprung from the rich rotting-wood soils of the deeply shaded woods. An epiparasite, this waxy white plant survives by interconnecting through mychorrhizal (fungal) networks to nearby tree roots for nourishment. The patch we found had not yet been pollinated as its white flowers hung over. Once pollinated by forest insects, the flower will stand erect and facing up.
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| Black Cohosh - Cimicifuga racemosa |
Finding Black Cohosh on a steep hillside along the creek was a treat. It signals the start of deep heat summer and is found in coves and hollows throughout the Piedmont and Appalachians. Its medicinal uses are well-known and extensive and though now cultivated in nurseries for pharmaceutical suppliers, collecting the wild autumn berries is still an important Piedmont and Appalachian cottage industry on public lands. My cabin-living mountain folk, great uncle and aunt Russ and Virginia, were pickers for a small company that paid them well for their autumn hall of black cohosh berries. (They also brewed a wicked good root beer!)
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| Trio of Puffballs |
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| Old Man of the Woods, Strobilomyces floccopus |
Our second day of park exploration was our final full day camping at Little Bennett Campground. We wandered all the campground loops and connector trails including the nature trail loop. One of our favorite finds was an Old Man of the Woods, which is a heavily scaled, armored-looking mushroom and usually pretty hard to find because it blends in to the shady places so well. Here it was, standing obvious, even defiantly, near the edge of a mossy roadside.
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| Devil's Urn, a sac fungi. |
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| Remains of a Gilled Bolete ( it's delicious cap has been eaten) |
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| Coral fungi - Clavulinopsis corniculata |
Tiny antler-like fruiting bodies of a coral fungi,
C. corniculata, reached up from a duff layer of moss and bark chips near a fallen oak. It has tips the color of yellow corn - hence its name- and resembled a tiny deer antler shed, aged with time on the forest floor. Nearby was the remains of a gilled mushroom whose cap had been eaten away by squirrels, mice, or chipmunks.
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| Fairy Stool, Coltricia perennis |
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| Boletes with a topping of pollen sprinkles. |
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| Fly Agaric, Amanita muscaria (poisonous) |
Hiking in England - this wasn't it. England will have to wait with all its sea breezes and cool mists on the moors. But we were able to have a safe experience at Little Bennett as our basecamp to walk a few more sections of the C&O Canal (next post) and explore an area close to home (90 minutes) we wouldn't gave otherwise thought to explore. It also wasn't a thru-hike of the C&O as I had hoped, either. A persistent sinus and ear infection and my growing intolerance for heat and humidity kept me close to being able to head home should I need another doctor's appointment. So it was a good decision to make the week a series of day hikes. This is a time to be flexible and creative with how we enjoy our outdoor time while also taking every precaution to protect ourselves, those around us, and the people who are at work to make these places safe for the rest of us.
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Blue Phlox at old factory site.
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We used to microwave, now we just eat nuts and berries.
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