My family and I decided to kick off the new year with a first day hike at Beverly Triton Nature Park in Edgewater, MD. We had been to Beverly Triton before, but hadn’t been since the park closed for renovations. This was our first chance to see the changes, and it is amazing! Prior to renovation, one did not pay to enter the park, but, post-renovation, Beverly Triton, like Quiet Waters, Downs, Kinder Farm, and Fort Smallwood, charges an entrance fee. A daily pass is $6, but we purchased the annual pass for residents of AA County, which was $30. As I’ve said in my posts before, the annual pass is worth its weight in gold! Beverly Triton, Downs, and Fort Smallwood are all favorite parks of my kids.
Once we paid for our pass, we were allowed to park in the lot, which is much more spacious than the previous one, and paved. No more rutted, pebble strewn lot. The trails here are well marked, and I had had an idea of what trail I wanted us to do. Stormy, however, had other ideas. She had snapped up the booklet the lady at the entrance booth had given us. It was entitled New Years Self-Guided Hike, and Stormy wanted to lead us on that hike. Fortunately, for me, Stormy’s hike, and the one I had had in mind, overlapped.
We started our hike on the yellow trail, following the yellow blazes. We’d planned to make the first right, and cut over to the trail that circled Deep Pond. The first trail, however, looked fairly waterlogged, so we continued on yellow until we hit the next intersection. We made a right, and, when we reached the orange trail, made another right. Our plan was simply follow the orange trail around Deep Pond, stopping at the stops highlighted in the booklet. The first stop was at the brand new fishing pier, where we had great views of the pond. Stormy happily read out the information on this stop provided by the booklet. We continued our hike around the pond, stopping periodically, enjoying the fresh air and the woods. Rainbow loved the many, many boardwalks over muddy, wet patches, which was two long boards laid side to side. She discovered that if you jumped in certain spots on the boards, she could make the mud splash up. Once she started jumping, her sisters joined in! Of course, this did make the boards a bit wet and a bit slippery…
The orange trail eventually ended at an intersection with the red trail. We turned right, and took the longer red trail past Beverly Lake, and circled around to the beachfront area of the park. By this time, the girls were done with reading the booklet at the various stops. They’d seen sand and water, and wanted to play. One of the nice features of this park now, is that the beach area has been turned into a swimming area. I had the girls hike until we reached a portion of the swimming beach area before I allowed them down onto the sand to play. With the cool temps, no one asked to go in the water, but all 3 stripped their outer layers off, and set off to build sand mounds, and draw in the wetter sand. Miracle of miracles, no one got a wet foot!
We finished our hike off by following the beach trail back around to the canoe launching area. There are restrooms here, newly built, but not yet operational. There are also porta-potties. On our way back to the car, we passed another new feature, the tot lot. It is meant for kiddos 2-5 years of age, but all 3 of my girls explored the small area along with multiple other kids close in age to them. It is a cute spot, and my girls loved climbing on the frog, and doing the obstacle course. We spotted a sign nearby that said “Fairy Garden Coming Soon.”
The renovations of this park are amazing. I loved everything they did, and still plan to do. I just hope the place isn’t total chaos in the summer months when people wish to swim in the bay. I believe they will use the same system as nearby Mayo Beach where people need a daily pass in order to enter the lot. My girls had a great time, they love the beach area here, and could play in the sand for hours. We will be back again, and soon. I plan to bring a picnic for the beach area. Before I forget, the beach isn’t near the parking lot, there is a bit of a walk between the two. Happy trails!
https://www.aacounty.org/recreation-parks/parks/beverly-triton-nature-park
