Wonderful wilderness
Magothy Greenway is a pocket of nature surrounded by urban sprawl, but it’s big enough to absorb you
Ihave a friend who just winterized his boat using the classic method involving a compass, an anchor, a chocolate bar and a bottle of rum. Using the compass, he headed his boat south until the chocolate bar started to melt, then he tossed the anchor overboard and opened the bottle. He and his wife are now in Key West, where, they informed me gleefully, it’s 82 degrees Fahrenheit.
I am not a winter person, but having no boat longer than my 17-foot canoe, I am stuck here in the snow. Still, I do enjoy a brisk winter walk, though not as much as Millie, our 1-yearold rescue retriever. The recent surprise snowstorm left Louise and me huddled in front of the fireplace while watching Millie frolic in the front yard as she searched in vain for all the tennis balls that had disappeared into the drifts.
When the temperature inched above freezing one sunny day this past week, Millie and I took a walk in the Magothy Greenway Natural Area with my friend Tom Guay. Tom is the guy who makes things happen in the Severn River Association (SRA), one of America’s oldest environmental organizations, which is going on more than 100 years.
Tom has activated the organization’s comprehensive water-quality monitoring initiative, created an on-the-water environmental education program and fostered an aggressive campaign to plant millions of spat on oyster reefs up and down the river. Tom’s goal is to plant three billion oysters in the river, even, he says, if it takes the next 100 years to do it.
Tom brought along one of his protégés, Jack Beckham, who recently earned his Bachelor of Science degree in environmental studies at Boston College. Jack is working with SRA as a paid intern through the Chesapeake Conservation Corps program sponsored by the Chesapeake Bay Trust.
The Magothy Greenway Natural Area has a name that would make you think it’s bigger than it really is. Coming in at around 300 acres, this is one of Anne Arundel County’s wonderful “pocket wildernesses,” a forest surrounded by suburban sprawl, but big enough to absorb you. It comprises two distinct habitats with several miles of trails that lead you through an area dominated by oaks and hollies and then into a dense thicket of tall white pines. The area covers the headwaters of Blackhole Creek on its way to feed the Magothy River.
The trailhead is located on the grounds of Looper’s Field, a county recreation park on North Shore Road, abutting the Shore Acres Elementary School grounds in Pasadena. It’s not listed on the AllTrails app yet. I was introduced to the site more than a year ago by Paul Spadaro, president of the Magothy River
Association, whose volunteers blazed all the trails. The county parks and recreation department has designated these trails as suitable for equestrians as well as pedestrians. Not to mention us canine-strians. Dogs, of course, must be leashed just as horses, I suppose, must be reined.
The gate is usually chained, but you can log onto the county website to get the combination for the lock. The trailhead is at the edge of the woods at the far end of the parking lot, marked by a hitching post. Just inside the woods, there’s a small black marker near a holly sapling. This is a memorial to my friend Capt. Walter “Jake” Jacobs, who passed away in 2015.
Capt. Jake was a Chesapeake pilot for 44 years, guiding freighters and tankers up and down the bay. He was a staunch supporter of several local environmental groups as well as the Annapolis Maritime Museum. Any time we got together, we’d sing a rousing duet of “Sailing Down the Chesapeake Bay.” I sang that song solo in his memory as Tom, Jack and I walked past the marker. Millie did not join in.
I have to mention here that in addition to his stellar work saving the Severn River, Tom Guay is also an extraordinarily talented musician and song writer. He plays guitar with the Eastport Oyster Boys and Blue Suede Bop. As we strolled along the level, leaf-matted path, we chatted mainly about music — the new Beatles documentary, a recently published collection of all of Paul McCartney’s lyrics, and about the sad passing of our mutual musician friend, Don Cosden of Galesville.
I’d performed with Don and That West River Band at the Chesapeake Music Festival at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in 2019, and I was as impressed by his skill on the guitar as I was with his warmth and wit.
Millie led the way as we followed the red-blazed trail through the oak-and-holly portion of the woods. The path was clear for the most part, with a few puddles here and there glazed over with ice. Snow still covered the forest floor. The temperature was around 33 degrees, but we were protected from the wind that we could hear rushing through the treetops above us.
I was actually fairly warm as we walked, layered in a flannel shirt, a thick fleece and a hooded parka. I recently added a pair of fleecelined trousers to my winter wardrobe and I’ve pretty much been living in them the past month. I also have a new pair of snow boots with felt liners, and wearing all of that along with Gortex ski gloves and my favorite tweed hat and wool scarf from Scotland, I didn’t mind the cold. Millie had no protection at all, but didn’t seem a bit bothered as she nosed along the trails.
Soon we made the transition into the pine forest, where we discovered the site of what in the spring would be a vernal pool, but was now just an empty glade. A few swamp magnolias still had some of their shiny green leaves attached. Jack explained that vernal pools are unique micro habitats that fill up with rain or snow melt in the spring and then dry out the rest of the year. They’re ideal for fostering critters like frogs, salamanders and turtles that need to begin their life cycles submerged. The last time I’d been by this one, it was shin-deep in tannic water and teeming with peepers.
We had walked about 3 miles by the time we’d found our way back to the car. We agreed that this is a pleasant walk, all flat terrain with just a few fallen trees to hitch ourselves over, and remarkable in its variety of habitats. Paul Spadaro informs me that the Magothy River Association volunteers will be expanding the trails into that section of the woods on the far side of North Shore Road in the coming year. He tells me the trails will lead to a bog where pitcher plants can be found. Can’t wait to explore some more. When it’s warmer.
Where’s your favorite winter walk? Let me know at arundelhappytrails@gmail.com.
Magothy Greenway Natural Area
20 North Shore Road Pasadena, MD 21122
(410) 222-7317
Open from dawn to dusk, no admission, no facilities. Log into the Anne Arundel County parks website to get the current combination for the lock on the gate.