Find the top rated cross country skiing trails in Ellicott City, whether you're looking for an easy short cross country skiing trail or a long cross country skiing trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a cross country skiing trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
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Parked at Carroll Park to get on the trail and I’ll never do that again. Credit to the numerous homeless people gathered around and the guy actively infecting drugs into his arm for not breaking into my car for the 90 minutes I was on the trail. Graffiti everywhere and quite a bit of trash. Once you get to Leakin Park it’s actually pretty nice. I’m pretty new to Baltimore and I’m really hoping it has better bike trails to offer than this.
Good pavement, gentle inclines, wildlife, views, benches. Only drawback is crossing multiple busy roads.
We started this path from the Conowingo dam parking lot. We had to move through a group of turkey vultures to get to the trailhead. It was a beautiful fall day and the trail was clear of most debris. There are quarter mile markers. While we were out, several bikers were also on the trail. We took several side trails to the river to see other wildlife and to get some sun. The deep canopy of the trail blocks much of the sun making this an easy stroll in 80 degree weather.
This is probably the most I could handle on a bike ride. We rode the GAP and C&O back to back like many do in 8 days. It was great fun but the C&O is noticeably rougher, fewer port-a-Johns and very scarce potable water sources. On our 7th day from Williamsport to Brunswick we ran out of water midway and rode the remaining 25 miles without water. Fortunately the shade offered by the beautiful canopy of trees made it bearable. We made sure to load up on extra water on our final day. The mix of loose sand that caught us by surprise & the larger stones on the trail made for a more challenging ride than expected. On the one rainy day we had from Cumberland to Little Orleans, some of the puddles we encountered offered a new sense of “oh dear” as we didn’t know how deep the hole we were riding thru when there was no room to go around the puddle.
My first time on this trail today and I was not disappointed! Each trail has a personality and I would say that the WB&A is the back country cousin of the the more metro B&A trail over by Annapolis. Lots of tunnels and bridges make this interesting, and the steep, serpentine descent on pristine new blacktop going south to the new bridge was exhilarating and frightening at the same time. A super ride out and back. I parked at the Electric Ave Lot at mile 1. The map shows a restroom (Jiffy John), but I didn't see any on my trip today. The closest one starting at the southern end was at the parking lot at 8609 Race Track Rd, Bowie, MD. The splash park did not have an external restroom that I could find.
This is a great trail. Shaded and flat. It could use some more signage, though, to help identify right and lefts.
We camped at Indian Rock Campground right along this trail. It was a lovely comfortable ride with our mountain bikes. The Howard Tunnel was neat too. We highly recommend this trail.
Beautiful quiet rail trail that we have added to our favorites list.
We started at Lake Needwood which had great parking. The trail is not well maintained. It is bumpy most of the way south. It looks like there has been some attempt to patch the asphalt but the transitions were not smoothed out so many jarring bumps. Also tree roots have pushed up the trail which is not unusual but given all the other bumps it was annoying. Also be aware that from Lake Needwood - it is downhill so if you are returning to the same spot, you will have an uphill climb which is not too bad.
We Loved this trail. We got on at the Brillhart Road Parking lot went down the trail through the Howard tunnel, all the way down to the Hanover Junction. It was pretty much all in the shade. There were sections with very low grade ups and downs but the grade was so low you couldn’t see the hills visually, you just felt the difference in your legs. There was also minimal street crossings and they were all super small back roads with minimal traffic, which was great for my kids.
This was the second time I visited this trail. But the change in parking location from Quarryville the first time to Red Hill Road in Pequa this time made all the difference. From the that trailhead, you can choose what direction you’d like to enjoy the trail. But I would highly recommend going west towards the Martic Forge Trestle and the beginning of the spectacular views of the Susquehanna to River
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