Oct. 15, 2025

I did not hike to the top of this mountain, although it is hard to call it a mountain. The park shares the tallest waterfall in Maryland with a state park, but I did not go there either. I went the historic route with charcoal making and moonshine. The hardwood forest was heavily logged in the early 1800s for making charcoal to supply an iron furnace in nearby Thurmont. The interpretive trail has a replica hut and wood sled with several sites along the hike that were used as kilns. The other trails were a viewpoint of the town and a still site that was used for an illegal industrial sized liquor operation that led to the murder of a sheriff deputy in 1929. The squirrels rule the area now.