On a beautiful Sunday afternoon in late March, my family and I decided to visit an area of Patapsco Valley State Park that we had never been to before. The Hollofield Area is located just off Route 40, Baltimore National Pike, about halfway between 695 and 29. It is also the center of the State Park. It isn’t a large area, but easy to locate, and, even better, it has a new playground, which our girls were eager to check out.
Like other areas of the park, Hollofield relies on its visitors to pay admission at an honor box as you enter the park. The playground is easily visible from the entrance with a fairly large parking lot right next to it. This playground is fully accessible, allowing children with mobility issues to play right alongside everyone else. FYI, it isn’t shaded so during the summer, it will be hot! As for restrooms, there aren’t any near the playground. You either have to make a left out of the playground parking lot, and drive or walk down to one set of restrooms. You can also cross the road from the playground, as if you are heading toward the campground, and there is another restroom perched up on the hill. Unfortunately, as we discovered, the restroom on top of the hill was still closed for the season. My husband had to walk back toward and past the playground to locate the other bathrooms, which were open. Per usual, I had our portable with us so that I didn’t have to worry which way to go to find an open restroom if Pebble or one of the other girls needed to use the facilities.
Other than the inconveniently located restrooms, this park was a major hit with the girls. The playground was larger than we’d expected with a lot of fun elements. There was a music area, tunnels, slides, Aeroglider (AKA Pebble’s pirate ship), tree stumps to jump across, monkey bars, obstacle courses, and plenty of things to climb! Stormy and Rainbow were in heaven doing all sorts of tricks on the monkey bars while Pebble explored every inch of the playground. Pebble especially loved the vertical bars that she could clamber across to go from one section of the equipment to another. There was a tall, twisty, enclosed slide that the girls had a blast shooting down.
On one of her many runs down the tall slide, Stormy spotted a second playground, and asked to check it out. We crossed the road, and walked past the closed set of restrooms. Directly in front of us was the campground road, which was closed off. To our right was the second playground, and to our left was a scenic overlook. We took a detour down to the overlook to see what we could see of the Patapsco River Valley. Sadly, the overlook was overgrown, and we couldn’t even see the river.
We headed back uphill to find that second playground. This playground was much older, and much smaller than the first. It was simply monkey bars and a slide, but that didn’t matter to our girls. They had the playground to themselves, and both Rainbow and Stormy took turns using the monkey bars. My husband and I were truly amazed at what the girls could do. Stormy was able to hook her feet through the bars, hang upside down, and then use her core to pull herself back upright. Rainbow was also able to hang upside down, as well as climb on top of the monkey bars. Pebble isn’t able to do the monkey bars yet, but she was able to hang on the bar over the slide, and had her own tricks to show us. All three were loving having an audience!
Eventually, we returned to the first playground to play a bit longer before we wrapped things up and headed for home. It was a great first visit to the Hollofield Area, and we will be back! Happy trails!
https://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/pages/central/patapsco.aspx