Cascade Falls: Hike #3

Last week the temperatures warmed up to the 50's, so we headed out to someplace different.  We opted to make the hour drive to Patapsco Valley State Park to see if the waterfall located in the park was still frozen. Cascade Falls as it's known, descends down a 10-15 foot face, and is reached by the Cascade Trail located near the parking lot in the Orange Grove Area of the park.  Patapsco Valley State Park is pretty special to me for many reasons: I grew up going to this park when I was a kid, my great-uncle (who was like a grandfather to me) was a superintendent of the Park back in the day, and I was married in the park (I even hiked to the falls in my wedding dress).  So, because I had extra prepaid admission passes I had purchased for the wedding, we headed to the outskirts of Baltimore.

 The Cascade Trail is about 2.5 miles.  The beginning of the trail makes one think the entire hike might be too strenuous, but it isn't.  After the initial climb up the hill (really not bad- remember I did it in my wedding dress), she begin to see some of the rapids before finally coming to the falls.  It's a popular place in the summer as families like to splash around in the pool at the falls' base.  Turns out it's just as popular in the winter.  Despite having a couple of warm days, the falls were still mostly frozen.  You could see the water rushing behind the ice, but the rocks were coated with ice and the pool at the base was frozen solid.  Usually my journey along the trail ends at the waterfall, but we wanted a longer hike so we continued along the trail. 

We followed the stream that feeds Cascade Falls.  It was ice crusted, but not frozen solid probably because of it's fast movement and the few warmer days.  The trail was also incredibly muddy.  A good moment to mention Leave No Trace- it's better to go through mud than around it.  If everyone starts going around, you make a new trail and that's not really a good thing.  So make sure you wear shoes you won't be upset about getting full of mud.
We continued along and eventually reached the far end of the trail that butts up to some houses and another parking area for the trail.  Here the trail makes a large loop before joining back to the original trail and heading back down to the falls.

Once we were back to the parking lot where we started, a couple of us headed across the iconic swinging bridge to the other side of the Patapsco River.  We were looking for a spot to be able to walk down to the water's edge and rinse off our boots.
Did I mention that the trail was super muddy?
The swinging Bridge does "swing", or rather, it bounces a little as people walk across it.  Back when I was a kid, it would really sway and bounce.  Then someone fell to their death and the bridge was redone in a way to make it have less movement.  The bridge was built as a replica of one that spanned the river in the 1800's and allowed employees of the mill to get to work.





At the river's edge, there were a lot of ice piles deposited by the river.  They were all several inches thick.  Had we managed to get to the park before the warmer weather, we would have seen a frozen river, or at least witnessed some ice flows. 

Maybe we would have even seen a couple of penguins and a polar bear riding the ice flows as well.