A reference for Garrett County, Maryland
The high ground, measured and dated.
Garrett County holds Maryland's highest ground, its deepest snow and its largest lake. Ten state parks and forests sit within half an hour of Deep Creek — a 53-foot waterfall, old-growth hemlock that predates the state, and 54,000 acres of forest behind it.
This is the guide that tells you what's actually there this season: what a park costs, whether there's a toilet, and — new this year — which one you can no longer just turn up to. Every fact carries the date we checked it and who told us. Here's how that works.
- 10
- state parks & forests
- 10
- town parks
- 3,360
- feet at the highest point
- 8
- towns with their own parks
Section 01
State parks
All ten, and the one that now needs booking.
Swallow Falls, Deep Creek Lake, Herrington Manor, New Germany and the rest — facilities, fees, reservation status and what's still unconfirmed.
10 parks and forests
02Section 02
Town parks
The municipal ones. Starting with: are there restrooms?
Garrett County itself owns only four park sites — the parks people use belong to eight small towns, and nobody documents them in one place.
10 listed
Every fact here is dated
Rules around here change more than you'd expect, and the published answer lags by years. Swallow Falls started requiring reservations in May and most guides haven't noticed. So we go and ask — the county, the park, the town — and then we write down the date and who said it.
It means you can see how fresh an answer is before you drive anywhere, and what we haven't checked yet is marked as unchecked rather than guessed.Every fact on the site is listed with its source and age.
Still to come
Dogs, the lake itself, and winter. One section at a time, each checked before it goes up.