Cyclist Brooks Boliek takes a lunch break in Catoctin Mountain Park near Camp David: Glynn Wilson

Secret Vistas – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

CATOCTIN MOUNTAIN, Md. — While tens of thousands of people flock to the iconic national parks of the American West in the summer travel season, exacerbating an already disastrous mega-drought and experiencing a record-breaking heat wave and an already out of control wildfire season, there are lesser known places where campers may escape the worst of global warming and climate change.

Related: Americans Flock to Western National Parks in the Middle of a Heat Wave

Take Catoctin Mountain in Maryland, for example, a less famous gem of a mountain ridge north of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.

In all my travels searching for a place to stay near Washington, D.C. on the East Coast in the summer months, Cunningham Falls State Park is the place to be. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone. We don’t want to let the secret out and risk overrunning the place with inexperienced campers and tourists. It’s already pretty hard to reserve a campsite on the weekends. Local Maryland campers already know about the place.

Without behaving totally like novice tourists, my friends and I are always looking for interesting new places to explore and things to do in between covering the news out of the nation’s capital.

My good friend Brooks Boliek, a resident of College Park who is originally from Birmingham, Alabama too, is a cyclist training to ride the entire 105 miles of Skyline Drive in one day ride. Since it gives us an excuse to spend a few nights in campgrounds cooking out and hanging out together, I’m more than happy to accommodate his dream by acting as crew.

Camping and riding bikes is not just about getting from point A to point B. We always have our eyes peeled for interesting things to do and see in this great country.

One of the missions this week, as he was looking for a 60 mile training ride and interesting climbs, we set out to find the highest point or the crest of Catoctin Mountain. It’s not really clear on GPS maps or websites where this is, so it took a bit of an investigation and some riding around on winding mountain roads to pinpoint its location. While he drove using the Google GPS map on his iPhone, I had the Apple iPhone compass app open checking the elevation.

After driving around in some beautiful farm country all the way north to a neighborhood called Blue Ridge Summit in Southern Pennsylvania, where we found an elevation of 1,790 feet above sea level on a gravel road called High Rock, we wound our way back down into Maryland and found Tower Road. As we went uphill just past an old fire lookout tower, now a cell phone tower, we found it. Wikipedia had indicated the highest point here was 1,900 feet, and sure enough, the compass hit that mark just past the tower.

Brooks Boliek at the highest point on Catoctin Mountain in Maryland: Glynn Wilson

According to the online encyclopedia, this is the easternmost mountain ridge of what people call the Blue Ridge Mountains, more famous in North Carolina, which of course are part of the Appalachian Mountains range, home of the Appalachian Trail which runs from Georgia to Maine. We just thought it would be a cool thing to do to find the crest, which is not obvious from the view that is — let’s face it — less dramatic than some of the views out west in the Rocky Mountains or even Shenandoah in Virginia.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, variant names of Catoctin Mountain have included Kittochiny Mountains, Kittockton Mountain, Kittocton Mountain, and South Mountain. The name “Catoctin” probably derives from the Kittoctons, an American Indian tribe or clan which once lived between the mountain and the Potomac River. Local tradition asserts that Catoctin means “place of many deer” in a Native American language.

Scientists say the mountain is as old as the Himalayas in China, and has been pounded down and eroded over millennia, which accounts for the fact that it is not as high as other peaks in the East. The mountain, like much of the Blue Ridge, consists of Proterozoic Catoctin metabasaltic greenstone interspersed by metasedimentary white quartz and other phyllites and Precambrian basalt flows. The greenstone was originally formed about 570 million years ago as part of the rifting of the super-continent, Rodinia. The greenstone was later uplifted during the Alleghenian Orogeny and thrust westward, being interspersed with the sedimentary rock deposited during the Paleozoic era.

Of course Catoctin Mountain is perhaps best known as the site of Camp David, a mountain retreat for presidents of the United States. It was first used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, who called it “Shangri-La”. In the 1950s President Dwight Eisenhower renamed it Camp David, after his grandson David Eisenhower. The resort is extremely well guarded by the United States Secret Service, and only approved guests of the President are allowed into the retreat. Due to its proximity to Washington, D.C., and its beautiful mountain scenery, Camp David has proven to be a popular weekend “getaway” for many United States presidents, and approximately 1/3 of Catoctin Mountain Park can be closed to the public on short notice.

The climb up the shady Park Central Road through the National Park Service run Catoctin Mountain Park is a popular bike ride, and one of my favorite picnic spots here is the Chestnut Picnic Area just north of Camp David. Again, please don’t tell anybody else about the place. This will be our little secret vista.

This week, as we reconnoitered at the half way point on the 60 mile ride for lunch in Chestnut, I talked to a local elderly couple who come here regularly to walk. The trails are incredibly soft, covered in a layer of moss. It’s easy on the knees to hike here, and quite beautiful in the shade. Back in the spring, the trees here were full of migrating birds.

A red-headed woodpecker in Catoctin Mountain Park: Glynn Wilson

A distressed bird during the Spring migration in Catoctin Mountain National Park in Maryland: Glynn Wilson

A silouette of a pileated woodpecker in Catoctin Mountain National Park in Maryland: Glynn Wilson

On another day, we decided to find, check out and photograph the three covered bridges in Frederick County.

Roddy Road Covered Bridge: Glynn Wilson

The Utica Covered Bridge is closed due to damage from a large truck driving through and hitting the beams: Glynn Wilson

The largest of the three bridges is Loy’s Station, crossed by the Union Army after the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War chasing the Confederates in retreat south: Glynn Wilson

The largest of the three bridges is Loy’s Station, crossed by the Union Army after the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War chasing the Confederates in retreat south: Glynn Wilson

I had been wondering where the popular local swimming hole might be, and we found it at the final bridge.

A popular local swimming hole by Loy’s Station Covered Bridge, in Frederick County, Md.: Glynn Wilson

HISTORIC COVERED BRIDGES DRIVING TOUR

So if you are looking for a place to visit and camp in the summer where it is not too hot and buggy, you might forego heading out West and check out the camping on Catoctin Mountain. Just leave a campsite or two vacant for us.