Page 17 - Garrett County 2024/2025 Visitors Guide

“Our focus was to try to scale things up and to give an impression when you walk into the museum that you know where to go first, second, third,” Stutzman said. The Stutzmans cleared the building completely, repainting all the walls and wood trim in neutral colors that wouldn’t distract from the museum’s collection.
“We painted the ceiling a dark blue to serve as a background for a starry night” composed of small metal stars, Stutzman said. Not any starry night though — the Stutzmans depicted a night sky as it would have been seen the year the Historical Association was founded.
The museum also features an interactive touch screen where visitors can explore historical artifacts beyond what’s displayed inside the museum itself — such as a detailed aerial map of Victorian-era Mountain Lake Park or additional information about the many performers and characters who passed through the resort.
“People who visit the museum are impressed with how much there is to look at and read,” Stutzman said. “We’d like for people to see it as a place they can come back to and learn more.”
The museum is also a great jumping-off point for a tour of the town’s historic district, which surrounds the ticket office building. “After people leave the museum, they can take a walking tour map with them and learn all about the town’s cottages,” Stutzman said.
Visits to the museum are by appointment. To make an appointment and watch a video tour of the renovated space, go to mlpha.org/museum.
NEW ACCESSIBLE HIKING TRAIL OPENS AT FORK RUN
The 0.65-mile Acorn Trail in the Fork Run Recreation Area isn’t just any new addition to Garrett County’s already extensive trail network — it’s specifically designed to make hiking more accessible for those with mobility limitations. That includes all-terrain wheelchair users, senior citizens, those recovering from surgery, or those using adult strollers.
The trail “is accessible immediately from the parking lot, so there are no long traverses for people who have mobility restrictions,” said Josh Spiker, Executive Director of Garrett Trails (garretttrails. org), a nonprofit dedicated to the development of high-quality, sustainable trails across the country. “It’s 46 inches wide, which allows for ample space to pass safely. The surface is packed limestone, which hardens into a nonpermeable tread, so water will shed from it and it’ll stay clean of debris. For people with limited mobility, it means fewer obstacles, fewer things to trip on, fewer ways to fall.”
Previously, opportunities for limited-mobility trail users to connect with the forest were hard to find. With that in mind, in 2021, Garrett Trails applied for and received
a grant from the Tucker Community Foundation
to purchase a GRIT Spartan all-terrain wheelchair (pictured at right). Currently, the GRIT chair is available for free use through a partnership with the Deep Creek Lions Club, with either a member of the Lions Club or Garrett Trails available for instruction and support.
“The chair was the catalyst for the development of the Acorn
Trail,” Spiker said. “Taking the chair to community events and giving demonstrations helped build momentum, and that caught the attention of the County Senior Planner, who determined that Fork Run was the perfect place for what we hope is the first of many similar trails.”
PHOTOS BY LAURA STUTZMAN | © ELOQUI, INC.
In the end, the county took the lead on the project, getting it done with funding from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
For those interested in walking the trail, “we recommend clockwise for less climbing,” Spiker said, “and counterclockwise if you want a little bit more of a climb.”
In future, the new trail will also connect to an intermediate trail, which will give hikers the option to go a loop that will stretch about a mile altogether. That is considerably shorter than the previous shortest loop at Fork Run, which is 3 miles.
Garrett Trails is also working on other accessibility projects elsewhere in the county. For example, in the town of Loch Lynn Heights, the nonprofit is working to fund a boardwalk update featuring bump-outs that would make it easier for strollers and wheelchairs to pass each other.
“Towns will approach us and ask how they can make their trails more accessible,” Spiker said. “Oftentimes, it’s as simple as removing the bollards at either end of a boardwalk.”
Spiker encourages anyone with suggestions on how to make trails more accessible and inclusive for all users to contact
Garrett Trails. “That’s how change really begins — people speaking up,” he said. “Then we can go to local
governments and work on getting resources allocated.”
PHOTOS COURTESY OF GARRETT TRAILS
// WHAT’S NEW
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