The Mountain Lake Park splash pad — a blue pad with three spray hoops, a tipping-bucket tower, a mushroom shower and a fire hydrant, with a pavilion right beside it to sit in the shade. It is the answer to a hot afternoon with small children, and there isn't another one like it in the county.
Splash pad
Pavilion
Splash pads run on a season and a switch. Photographed running in August; nothing published says when it's turned on in spring or off in autumn.
Oakland's lake park and the biggest municipal park in the county. A swimming beach, boat launch, and boat and pavilion rentals, with picnic ground, volleyball and basketball behind it.
The smaller Accident park, at the western end of Wood Street. A large pavilion plus climbing cubes, a saucer swing, a seesaw, and a swing set with an accessible seat. That last one is worth knowing. Accessible play equipment is rare out here and almost never published.
The town's park on the Youghiogheny, with a paved walking and biking loop, a river access ramp and a small sand beach. Two baseball fields, basketball, tennis, sand volleyball and horseshoe pits, a large playground and a lot of open ground.
Playground
Beach
Picnic tables
Pavilion
Courts / fields
Boat launch
Fishing
Paved path
River access here is on serious whitewater. The Youghiogheny through Friendsville is not a place to swim casually.
The town park in the middle of Grantsville, a block from the library and the restaurants. Playground, tennis and pickleball, basketball and sand volleyball, a softball diamond, and pavilions you can book.
Maryland 4-H Environmental Education & Camping Center
University of Maryland Extension
7/15
RestroomsYes — season not confirmed
Long known locally as Pleasant Valley. Over 1,100 acres run by University of Maryland Extension, part open to anyone and part reserved for camp programs and private hires. The swimming beach, boating, challenge course, archery and shooting range and the cabins all sit on the reserved side.
Trails
Fishing
This is a working camp, not a public park. The beach, boats, ranges and cabins are for camp programs and booked groups.
The larger of Accident's two town parks, on the southern end of South Street. A full playground, a little league field, a quarter-mile walking loop, horseshoe pits and a tennis court. A genuine neighborhood park rather than a scenic one.
A boardwalk trail through wetland rather than a park with a field in it. Restrooms are on site, though not always unlocked. Worth planning around rather than counting on.
One of several parks in Mountain Lake Park rather than the town's only one. The stub this record replaced assumed one park per town, which is wrong here. Restrooms and a play area.
A fenced off-leash dog park on the town walking trail, free to use. The town's own words are "a clean, safe environment" for "well-behaved canine citizens" and not much else — most of what's known about the inside of it comes from a magazine rather than from the town.
Dog park
Trails
The town publishes almost nothing about this park beyond that it exists and is free. Everything about what's inside the fence is second-hand.
The county's other off-leash park, inside the Lions Club's McHenry Community Park — which is the reason to pick this one over Oakland's: restrooms, pavilions, a trail system and a disc golf course are all a short walk away.
Dog park
The address is the disagreement worth knowing about. The Lions Club's own site gives 1249 Bumble Bee Road as Accident, MD 21520; the magazine prints McHenry, MD 21541. The operator wins here, but check your map before you drive.
Named by the county among the municipalities maintaining community parks. Park-level detail not yet confirmed.
Deer Park→
These belong to the towns, not the county
Garrett County owns four park sites. Four. Most of what gets called "county recreation" is actually school grounds run by the Board of Education.
So the parks people use belong to eight small towns: Accident, Friendsville, Grantsville, Kitzmiller, Oakland, Deer Park, Mountain Lake Park and Loch Lynn Heights. Each with its own budget and its own hours. And nobody had put any of it in one place.
Where this dataset stands
13
parks listed
9
restrooms confirmed
4
still unchecked
That's where it honestly stands. A couple of these are still name-only: towns the county says have parks, where I don't yet know which park or what's in it. They're listed anyway so you can see the hole.
