Exploring Wolf’s Den State Park

The Capital Off-Road Enthusiasts (CORE) organized a trail ride to Wolfs Den State Park in Kitzmiller, MD.  Wolfs Den State Park WDSP) is the state’s second attempt at setting up an off-road oriented state park.  The state clearly learned a lot from its first attempt and WDSP is an excellent set of off-road trails for full sized rigs, as well as, ATV, UTVs and dirt bikes.  Although it should be mentioned that the trails would be tight for a full sized pickup or one of the more expensive rigs that wants to avoid pin stripping.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AM-JKLUInWdiCEpQKhRdyF4fjDCQ3JJakNnTL1MbgOKewAecm_Tk21vSV-RhM91dknIaAzJmjsmrlH_-uaGc7pg-Ve5DZn_4y7wMLnyCtjHcdtO8JM1G8qgBSYKT7e8XkuH-wQs5NyTfnViWwGMAN0Qwd5iY=w1308-h872-no?authuser=0

The state makes registration and fees easy on-line.  Just be sure you register a few days ahead, so your e-mailed registration arrives before you head out. https://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/Pages/western/WolfDenRun/Reservations-and-Fees.aspx

The park is in the Deep Creek Lake area of Maryland, so about 3.5 hours from DC and little less from Baltimore.  Some of us came up the night before.  There’s camping in the park and hotels within 30 minutes of the park.  The rest made it as a day trip form the DC area, although a long day, i.e., 14 hours behind the wheel.  

CORE members and guests included:

  • Mike O’Grady – 2012 Jeep Rubicon,
  • Andrew, Cherie and Ethan Taylor – 2012 Nissan Xterra,
  • Dawn Keslar – 2015 Toyota 4Runner SR5 Premium,
  • Jendra Rambharos – 2012 Jeep JKU Wrangler,
  • Ken Kyler – Ride along with Dawn, 
  • Sergey Revashev – 2017 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon,  
  • Brian & Kelly Middleton – Gray JKU.

We started at 10AM to allow our day trippers to get to the starting point without having to get up at 4AM. Andrew Taylor drew up a great plan for the ride. I would recommend doing your homework with one of the mapping apps, we used Gaia, so you have a game plan going in. We’ll met at the trailhead for the North Hill Area.  The coordinates are 39.394841, -79.213592.   You might want to download the directions and off-road routes, if you can.  Cell service is spotty in the mountains. If you have a cell booster, bring it.  We also had so problems with Gaia accuracy.  Do sure if it’s the app or the files the state sent them.  These are tight enough trails that you really don’t want to back up 100 yards because you missed the turn.  

The trails are new, so they have thicker brush and are more overgrown than the typical east coast trail.  The state has marked the trails well, but you definitely have the feeling that you on an expedition, going into areas not well traveled.  The trails are narrow and overgrown enough that you should expect pinning stripping.

We had a great time at a great off-road park.  It had a much more wild forest feel than any for the other places we wheel.  Nice challenging trails, but no breakage, no winching.  We will definitely be going back and strongly recommend a trip to Wolfs Den.

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Photo Album: 06/26/21 Wolf’s Den Run

Trail Reports written by Mike O’Grady. Pictures contributed by Jendra Rambharos, Ken Kyler, Brian Middleton. GPS track provided by Jendra Rambharos.

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