I
Greenbelt Park is encircled by a 5.3-mile Perimeter Trail, a little longer than I want to stay out there by myself on your average afternoon, so I'm dividing it into four parts. The first section is accessed from the park entrance road, just before you reach the Park Headquarters building. It skirts around the edge of the park on the outside of the loop road (which means, at times, the trail is divided from a largish highway only by a chainlink fence and a few trees; other times, you are well inside the wooded area). Eventually the trail takes a sharp jog south to parallel the Park Central Road, at which point I headed straight instead, towards the road and the Dogwood Trail parking area, then back around the loop by road until I reached my car where I'd left it at the Sweetgum picnic area. Probably I covered just under 1 mile of the actual Perimeter Trail.
It was a 40-ish degree early spring day, and there were people in the park on this occasion, driving cars or walking on the roads. However, as usual, I did not encounter any other person on the actual trail.
Greenbelt Park is encircled by a 5.3-mile Perimeter Trail, a little longer than I want to stay out there by myself on your average afternoon, so I'm dividing it into four parts. The first section is accessed from the park entrance road, just before you reach the Park Headquarters building. It skirts around the edge of the park on the outside of the loop road (which means, at times, the trail is divided from a largish highway only by a chainlink fence and a few trees; other times, you are well inside the wooded area). Eventually the trail takes a sharp jog south to parallel the Park Central Road, at which point I headed straight instead, towards the road and the Dogwood Trail parking area, then back around the loop by road until I reached my car where I'd left it at the Sweetgum picnic area. Probably I covered just under 1 mile of the actual Perimeter Trail.
It was a 40-ish degree early spring day, and there were people in the park on this occasion, driving cars or walking on the roads. However, as usual, I did not encounter any other person on the actual trail.
The light, as you can see from the shadows in the previous photos, was really striking. We'd had days of rain and now the sun was breaking through, but low (it was about 3:30 pm).
Because of the rain, the trail was a bit muddy; and there was a spot on the connecting trail back to the Dogwood parking area where the creek had escaped its banks, created something of a swamp, and begun to wash across the path.
In other places, the creek was still inside its heavily-eroded banks.
II
April now; I parked my car in the Dogwood parking area and took the connector trail back to where I'd left the Perimeter Trail. The water was lower in the swampy area and I had multiple sightings of a pileated woodpecker in that spot. From the calls, there were more of them. As usual, I was unable to get a good woodpecker photo despite the size of the bird.
There was a pleasant, almost cedar-y smell in the forest, the worst olfactory offenses of early spring being already past. While most things were still brown and bare, there were notable spots of green.
Climbing a ridge, there was a rushing sound that could have been either traffic or a raging waterfall. It was traffic. Much of this stretch of the Perimeter Trail ran alongside the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

I passed through a dense stand of bushy material and could hear a zillion little creatures hopping around in there. Just sparrows, squirrels, from what I could see, and began to walk past. Then a half-reluctant double-take. "Bird every bird," I thought to myself, a reminder from ornithology class that rears its head every so often. I turned to look at the rustling on my immediate right. It was a bird I didn't know; upon identification, a rufous-sided towhee.
I could still hear pileateds in the treetops, too. But at this point the trail intersected with the road near the campground, and I walked back along the road to my car. Only one person in the woods today: a male jogger who looked winded enough that I was pretty sure he was focused on exercise alone.
III
A week, maybe two, has passed, and everything is different. The temperature is in the 60s, it's sunny, my husband is with me, and the trees are just starting to leaf out, unfurling very pale green buds. The green "skunk cabbage" (or whatever it is) is much bigger and covers more of the forest floor.
There are rills of bright clear water running here and there between high mud banks.
My husband and I parked by the campground ranger's station and reaccessed the third quadrant of the Perimeter Trail, cutting back through the Blueberry Trail to return to the car (and the ranger's station restroom) at the end. It was Earth Day, and a Sunday, and there were far more people in the woods than I had ever seen before. Many of them looked like college students. A group of these, lost, asked us for directions and fortunately I had a map. Fortunately for us, as well, because the signage in Greenbelt Park was as confusing as ever. One sign, in the middle of the woods, simply said "Metro," with an arrow pointing down a side path. |
IV
Final and longest stretch of the Perimeter Trail. I parked at the campground and walked back down the Blueberry Trail to the Perimeter, then all the way around the rest of the Perimeter Trail to the entrance road near the police station, returning to the car via the paved road. It was a 90-ish, humid, bright Saturday, and there were more trail runners and other fellow travelers than usual. I felt safe. On the other hand, having now thoroughly explored Greenbelt Park, I still feel there is something deeply unremarkable about it.
Final and longest stretch of the Perimeter Trail. I parked at the campground and walked back down the Blueberry Trail to the Perimeter, then all the way around the rest of the Perimeter Trail to the entrance road near the police station, returning to the car via the paved road. It was a 90-ish, humid, bright Saturday, and there were more trail runners and other fellow travelers than usual. I felt safe. On the other hand, having now thoroughly explored Greenbelt Park, I still feel there is something deeply unremarkable about it.
There are a lot of downed trees, often having pulled up all kinds of interesting roots and leaving massive holes in the ground.
Things were a lot greener than before.
The "skunk cabbage" has filled in quite a lot. I saw a pair of pileated woodpeckers, but they didn't wish to have their photos taken.
I saw this interesting personage hiding beneath the edge of the bathroom stall. Don't know who he was.
But then. Before hitting publish, I used an archaic tool called a "field guide" to check into this guy, who I guessed was a moth, though I couldn't see much of his body. I believe he is a "virgin tiger moth." I also note, only as I am posting this, that there is another mystery object or personage in the top left of this photo. If it is what it kinda looks like (the edge of a large spider entering the frame), then a) it may be the reason the moth is hiding under the stall next to his deceased buddy, and b) I'm glad I didn't see it when I was actually there taking the picture.
Here ends my wildlife notes for Greenbelt Park.
Here ends my wildlife notes for Greenbelt Park.