![]() There was less activity at the falls, where we spent half an hour scampering about. Along the shore the day we visited, families grilled burgers, kids built sand castles and teenagers flirted. The lakeside scene harks back to an era when "multitasking" was not in the lexicon. Today hundreds of visitors from Washington and beyond flock there to swim, canoe, rent sparkly green paddleboats or fish for trout, bass, catfish or crappie in the stocked lake. To complement the falls, the park carved out a giant crater, added a dam and, with a little help from Hurricane Agnes, a lake was born. Hunting Creek Lake was built in the early 1970s, about 25 years after the former Indian hunting grounds were divided into Catoctin Mountain Park, on the north side of Route 77, and Cunningham Falls State Park, the 4,940 acres to the south. But once inside, our impatience melted away, becalmed by the royal-blue expanse of lake. Moms with toddlers in their arms and children carrying plastic rafts walked along the road toward the lake while the husbands stayed behind the wheel. We waited almost 30 minutes to enter the park, idling behind cars packed to the roof with beach toys, coolers and kids. Many visitors don't even make it that far, seduced instead by the 43-acre lake just off the parking lot. We turned him around before he got even more lost, leading him back to the key fork in the path. And so he had: He was on the 27-mile trail to Frederick. After a half-hour of arduous hiking, he was beginning to wonder if he had taken a wrong turn. John, in flimsy footwear, was counting his paces from the trail head to the falls. Just ask John from Silver Spring, whom we ran into after our two-hour hike up to, over and around the falls. The route is pretty straightforward, but if you're not paying attention, you can end up far from any drop of water, in a forest of hemlocks and hickory. Though for the most part smooth, the trail descends into rocky outcroppings and short drops before you reach the small bridge leading to the falls. The easiest, quickest route to the waterfall is the Lower Trail, a half-mile hike that can throw even the most agile hiker off-balance. But there are hints of it along the way-slippery mud as gooey as toffee along the path and kids hiking up the trail, soaking wet and smiling. In fact, the park is quite coy about its natural treasure: You can't see the falls from the parking lot or hear it from the trail. Because the water flows in gentle, lazy folds, it lacks the surge and thunder of, say, Garrett County's Muddy Creek Falls, the state's longest rushing waterfall. The park, in the modest Catoctin Mountains, has the longest cascading waterfall in Maryland. Rolling up the windows, we headed 90 miles west to Maryland's Cunningham Falls State Park, where just the thought of a 78-foot waterfall seemed to lower the temperature by at least 10 degrees. Our mission: to find cool water and clean air. On the first Code Red day of the season, while most sane Washingtonians holed up in air-conditioned rooms to escape the ozone, my friend Glenn and I holed up in an air-conditioned car. ![]() Cunningham Falls State Park offers four cabins for rent, for $40 a night. ![]()
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