Patapsco Valley State Park

About this park

Patapsco Valley State Park stretches along 32 miles of the Patapsco River across central Maryland, encompassing over 16,000 acres and eight separate developed recreational areas spread between Baltimore, Howard, and Carroll counties. Its sheer scale and more than 200 miles of trails, roughly 70 of them officially maintained, have earned it a national reputation among hikers and mountain bikers, making it one of the most trail-dense parks anywhere in the mid-Atlantic. The park's Avalon area showcases the historic Thomas Viaduct, the world's longest multiple-arched stone railroad bridge, still in active use by CSX freight trains more than 180 years after its 1835 construction, while the nearby Orange Grove area features a 300-foot suspension swinging bridge that has become one of the park's most-photographed features. The valley's history runs deep into Maryland's early industrial era, when 18th- and 19th-century mills lined the Patapsco's banks, and remnants of that milling heritage still surface throughout the park's trail corridors. Wildlife including barred owls, pileated woodpeckers, and red-shouldered hawks make the park a genuine birding destination alongside its recreational draws of camping, fishing, canoeing, and horseback riding. Given its position running directly through the Baltimore-Washington corridor and its many separate access points from towns like Ellicott City and Catonsville, Patapsco Valley functions as the primary close-to-home nature escape for a huge swath of central Maryland's population.