Today we visited the Bear Legacy Adventure Trail in Bel Air, MD, just north of Baltimore, and only minutes from 95. It was about a 45 minute drive from Columbia and well worth the trip. Think natural playground meets hiking trail – a great way to motivate kiddos to go on a hike.
The longest trail is the white trail that circles the perimeter of the Maryland Center for the Arts property and is a 1.5 mile loop. There are several shorter trails that are perfect for even the youngest walkers.
We entered by the Welcome sign to the left of the parking and were immediately met with a great picnic and play area. The boys were immediately drawn to a musical instrument station and found many things to explore before moving on to the yellow (Leaping Lizards Trail). We then circled back using the white trail and hopped onto the orange (Story Forest Trail).
The Story Forest Trail is Brown Bear themed and encourages kiddos to search for animals along the trail. At the end, there is a very big tree fort. We had a great time playing on a natural see saw that was there. This might have been my favorite part.
Our two year old would have been happy cutting back on the blue trail and heading home at this point. However, we decided to push him a little bit to check out some of the white trail (pictured above) and we were glad we did. The far end of the white trail has some neat bridges that pass over the stream there as well as climbing grips on a group of trees that was fun to explore.
I think its good to note that the parking lot is on the small side, but the park neighbors an elementary school and public library, which you could potentially park at and walk over. I’m guessing this could also mean that the park gets quite busy in the summer, given the central location, but it was perfect on this cool January morning. We did, however, find the path thick with sticky mud, but luckily went prepared with hiking shoes.
Overall, this was a great find and we will definitely be back to try out some of their nature trail games!
Mommy LoCo 