Downhill All The Way: 9 1/2 Hours on the Gwynns Falls Trail

People are staying closer to home these days, but there’s still lots to do in the region. 9 ½ Hours is a feature with suggestions for local day trips.

In an alternate universe, Baltimore would be renowned for its impressive park system – with huge swaths of hills, trees and fields that are the result of century-old benefactors and thoughtful planning.

The parks are there, but they are not what they could be. Many advocates see the need for a network of paths and trails that connects neighborhoods and showcases the city’s strengths, while making Baltimore more walkable and bikeable.

The foundation for that kind of infrastructure is in place – but it’s in sore need of improvements, as our latest 9 ½ Hours adventure revealed.

We spent a steaming summer day on the Gwynns Falls Trail, the city’s oldest urban trail way, a 16-mile traverse along a river valley, beside a golf course, past stadiums before depositing us at the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River.

As we hoped, we found hidden treasures along the way. But there was also way too much trash, neglect and unfulfilled promise. There are also unadvertised trail closures, faded markings and odd turns that would make it nearly impossible for all but the most determined to complete the same journey we did.

We rode from the western end of the trail near Franklintown to the Hanover Street bridge – the downhill direction that lets gravity do a lot of the work. Travelling in the other direction is a serious calorie burn. We made it a two-vehicle journey: We parked a car at the southern end, so at the completion of the bike ride, we drove back to the start to retrieve the other vehicle.

The trail has 9 trailheads and more than 30 interpretive markers — providing a well-researched and little seen slice of Baltimore and its history – what was, what is, and what could be.

Franklintown, Leakin Park and the Crimea Estate

Trailhead 1 is just over the Baltimore County/Baltimore City line, at the very end of Interstate 70 at the park and ride lot that is part of the highway to nowhere. We mounted our bikes and headed through Franklintown, a mill village out of the 19^th century, down switchbacks and into Leakin Park.

At the heart of the park is the Crimea Estate, the former summer home of Thomas DeKay Winans, a chief engineer of the Russian Railway between Moscow and St. Petersburg in the 19th century. The estate features Winans’ Italianate stone mansion, Orianda, as well as a gothic chapel, a “honeymoon” cottage, and a carriage house.

We headed off on a side trail to see the impressively large wheel that pumped water to Orianda.

Right after the third trailhead, at about mile 4, we got our first taste of the challenge of creating and maintaining an urban trail; the route follows a stretch called Millrace that is an abandoned road on the eastern edge of Gwynns Falls. The surface is crumbled gravel, and riders pass through semi-abandoned construction sites – creating a feeling of remoteness. The slopes steeply climb on either side, and at several spots we experienced what many say about Leakin Park: It’s hard to imagine you are in the middle of a major American city and not a mountain wilderness.

Leon Day Park

Trailhead 4 is at Leon Day park in the Rosemont/Franklintown Road neighborhoods. It’s named for Day, a Negro League player and baseball Hall of Famer who some say was a better pitcher than Bob Gibson. Day and his siblings were raised in Southwest Baltimore, and he dropped out of Frederick Douglass High School to play professional ball, first with the Baltimore Black Sox but primarily with the Newark Eagles.

Shortly after heading away from Leon Day park, real trouble begins. Years-long construction of an Edmondson Avenue bridge at the Hilton Parkway intersection shuts off the trail completely, with an impassable chain link fence. Without warning, users are stranded on busy West Baltimore streets.

After looking at an online app, we guessed we could pick up the trail if we crossed through the massive Western Cemetery. We were almost right: we couldn’t find a road within the graveyard that gave us easy access to the trail that we could see beyond the edge of the cemetery. So after some wrong turns, one of us decided to pull our bikes through a hole in a chain link fence and clamber down short steep slope to get back on to the trail. [The co-author was none too happy about that choice.] The maneuver got us to the path, but we were immediately greeted with piles of discarded furniture and car accident remnants in the Shipley Hill neighborhood.

It was truly unacceptable that there was no signage, detour markers or warnings on web sites. As Jed Weeks of BikeMore explains, because the Edmondson Ave. project was started before Baltimore’s Complete Streets law – mandating that bikes and walkers be taken into account – there was no requirement to keep the trail open, at higher cost.

But that doesn’t explain the lack of online notification or signage.

Carrollton Viaduct, Carroll Park Golf Course and the Mount Clare Mansion

The next stretch of the trail traverses more steep slopes hidden in urban neighborhoods, and crosses the Carrollton Viaduct, a structure steeped in history.

Charles Carroll, the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence and a director of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, laid the cornerstone for the viaduct on July 4, 1828, and said, “I consider this among the most important acts of my life, second only to my signing the Declaration of Independence.”

Completed in 1829, the railroad bridge over the Gwynns Falls was the first major stream crossing as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad headed west from its Pratt Street terminus.

Immediately after the viaduct sits the Carroll Park Golf Course. It is here, along Washington Boulevard in South Baltimore in the shadow of soaring Interstate 95 ramps, that the trail markings become much harder to find.

That’s because they are faded green markings on the sidewalk, and the volunteers who do the painting can only do so much, while the city transportation department has maintenance responsibility for the portion on sidewalks and streets. Sleuthing is required. But it’s clearly a part of Baltimore not often seen on foot or by bike.

Another historic landmark lies just off the trail in Carroll Park, where family’s Mount Clare Mansion has become a museum house, and is the oldest Colonial-era structure in Baltimore, dating to 1763.

Stadiums and Federal Hill

By mile 11, we had reached the stadium complex, and were looking for refreshments. We decided to head over to Cross Street Market, where we grabbed some ice cream and fueled up for our final stretch. We had not spotted any other nearby commerce along the trail by that point.

But when we got back on our bikes we soon found another closure, this time at the spot where the Gwynns Falls Trail joins the Middle Branch Greenway, just north of the Horseshoe Casino. Like at Edmondson, the closure was unmarked, unwelcomed and unadvertised. But we poked our way past the city’s bus depot, and past Baltimore’s newest trash wheel – Gwynnda the Good Wheel of the West – scooping up debris where the Gwynns Falls meets the Patapsco. We continued our way along the Cherry Hill and Westport waterfront stretches that are slated for development.

The Middle Branch

The last couple of miles of the trail carry riders alongside the Middle Branch waterfront and Middle Branch Park, with unparalleled views of the Baltimore skyline. But like each park we passed through, Middle Branch was trash-strewn, with neglected pavement. Still, many residents were out, fishing, picknicking and relaxing.

We wished we had an easier day on the trail. We wished there were more shops, and less trash. Like much of Baltimore, there is so much potential – but reaching it will take an enormous investment.