Wolf’s Den Run June 2022
In June of 2022, the CORE club decided to plan a trip out to Wolf’s Den Run near Kitzmiller, MD for a weekend of wheeling and camping. Wolf’s Den Run is a new trail system in Maryland, consisting of three main sections, alongside the Potomac River. A trail map can be found here: https://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/Documents/WDRSP-Map.pdf
Being a new and unfrequently traveled trail system, Wolf’s Den has a tendency to become overgrown, particularly for full sized vehicles. So the plan on this trip was to bring brush clearing tools, such as loppers, reciprocating saws, and other tools to help widen the trails as needed.
In order to travel to Wolf’s Den for wheeling, a day use permit must be purchased ahead of time. There is a limit to the number of vehicles on the trails, and this is how they manage that. The permit can be purchased here: https://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/Pages/western/WolfDenRun/Reservations-and-Fees.aspx
Camping can be had in Wolf’s Den, which can be reserved here: https://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/Pages/western/WolfDenRun/Camping.aspx
Before meeting up with the club at camp, I decided to try some fishing in Deep Creek, which was on the way between home and Wolf’s Den. I discovered that Deep Creek Lake is highly commercialized, and there weren’t good accessible shoreline fishing spots available. I ended up going to Deep Creek State Park, and managed to find a couple docks to fish off of. I didn’t catch anything, but I didn’t spend much time trying either. Just mostly a reconnaissance trip to learn what’s out there. Next time I have a better idea about where to try my hand at catching some fish!
After wrapping up my fishing search, I headed over to the Wolf’s Den Run campground. The campsites were just ok. There is just one strip/loop for sites, half of which are out in the open, and the others in a tight loop, with only room for 1 tent. The loop sites are large gravel, which can be uncomfortable, and hard on gear, like tent floors. The open sites are very open, with no tree cover or shade. So if you’re on one of those sites, come prepared with an awning, or pop up canopy.
After camping for the night, we were joined the next morning by a few day trippers for the ride. For Saturday’s trip, we were going to be visiting two of the 3 areas, the North Hill Area and Potomac River Area.
We started out in the North Hill area, and this is where the action started! Just 10 minutes into the trail, we encountered our first of 3 flat tires of the day! Steve in his Nissan Frontier, on street oriented All-Season tires, got pinched a bit too tight against the rim and blew out a sidewall. After jacking up the vehicle, we got the tire swapped out with the spare, and were back on the trail within about 20-30 minutes. We learned that the easiest way to get the wheel off the ground to swap the tire wasn’t the bottle jack he carried, but rather the stock scissor jack, which was low profile enough to get under the control arm of a flat tire.
We got back onto the trail, and made our way through some beautiful, yet tight scenery. Fortunately, the trail was not as overgrown as we expected, so we didn’t have to do much clearing. There were some fun rocky bits along the trail, which made things a bit more challenging. Underbody protection is certainly recommended for this trail, as there are occasional large rocks, and with the tightness of the trail, not many options for getting around them!
After making our way through the trails, wrapping up the North Hill area and heading down to the Potomac River Area, we got to a really cool lunch spot alongside the river. Nicely shaded and off the main trail at a dead end, it gave us the chance to sit back and relax a bit.
After wrapping up lunch and getting back on the trail, disaster struck again! This time the Land Rover Defender took out a sidewall against a rock pinch. After working through that, using a quite unwieldy stock scissor jack, we got the 20 inch wheel and tire off, and got the spare on.
Then, on that same obstacle, the Frontier that had the initial flat got a flat on that same spot! It was a particularly naughty slanted rock, that did not look problematic at first, but was at just the right angle to punch through the sidewall of a street tire. This time, however, we were out of spares! Fortunately there was another Nissan in the group, and XTerra, who loaned his spare to the Frontier, and got him back on the move. It was a different size tire, so things weren’t perfect, but it was enough for us to continue on!
Shortly after that, we got to another section of trail which was a tight rocky left turn, with a large boulder on the left side. This presented us with probably the biggest bit of trail damage of the day. The Xterra while climbing, slid off the rock sideways, and hit the rear quarter panel against the boulder, leaving a sizeable dent in the body panel. Fortunately, the glass wasn’t shattered, and we managed to get him off of the rock with Zach’s winch keeping him from sliding towards the rock.
After getting through that rocky area, part of our group split off to call it a day and head home. The rest of us continued on to check out this neat fishing spot near the river, and then over to some steep hill climbs to play around on. After that, we were approaching the 6pm closing time for the park, so we headed out.
After getting to camp, we looked up places that could get us two new tires for the Frontier so that Steve could get back home. We discovered a Wal-Mart in nearby Oakland, and they told us that they did have tires in the right size, but we’d have to come back in the morning to get them swapped. So we made plans for that, then headed over to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner. After a nice dinner, we headed back to camp, settled in, and hung out around the fire, shared stories, and then called it a night after an action packed day on the trails!
The next morning after Steve got his new tires, we packed up camp, and most of us headed home. Zach and Kirk hit a couple more trails and then went home afterwards. On my way home I tried to see if I could find a spot to fish around Jennings Randolph Lake, which ran along the border between MD and WV. I ended up on the WV side, where I don’t have a license, so I decided to just call it and head home, and wrap up a fun weekend out in deep Western Maryland. Look forward to getting back out there!
Credit to Ben and Josiah Dunkerton for many of the photos in this post.
