Before I tell you the story of my splediferous day at Soldiers Delight in Owings Mills, with my old hiking buddy Jimmy Martin, I need to give you a driving alert. Avoid Liberty Road and it’s mile-upon-mile of traffic lights and mind-numbing commercial ugliness at all costs! Take MD795 instead, no matter what Google Maps tells you. Liberty Road may be the most hideous road in Maryland, though it did have the most intriguing fast food place I have ever seen: CHICKnTROUT. And there was also the glitzy brown glass Wylie Funeral Home that looked like a modern gambling casino. And at the Deer Park Road turnoff there sits a curious complex called dreamlife that was empty and fenced off as if abandoned for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic — dreamers no more. All in all, I found the drive hideously captivating and it seemed to go on forever.
We decided to do a quartet loop — the Serpentine Trail (White), Choate Mine Trail (Red), Dolfield Trail (Yellow), and the Red Run Trail (Orange). There are colored blaze marks on the trees, so you can easily follow where you’re supposed to be going, which is always helpful.
We parked by the Visitor Center (closed for renovations until further notice) and headed off on the Serpentine Trail, angling off to the right at the edge of the parking lot and meandering downhill through the patchy woods to an overlook by Deer Park Road where we snapped a few pictures of the valley below — lit all brick orange and yellow in its autumn coat.
A very interesting silver roadside sign rewarded us with the following historical tidbit:
- Chrome Was First Discovered In The United States In Baltimore County CA. 1808. Isaac Tyson Jr. Operated Chromite Mines At Soldiers Delight And In Other Serpentine Barrens. And From 1828 To 1850 His Mines Produced Almost All The World’s Chromium. The Unique Beauty Of This Area Is Enhanced By Rare Plants And Animals.
What makes Soldiers Delight so special, and at the same time slightly weird, is the serpentine rock. According to an interpretive sign at the edge of the overlook:
- The barrens of Soldiers Delight are underlain by serpentine, a bedrock high in magnesium and deficient in essential plant nutrients. Serpentine was probably named for its green, gray, and brown colors which resemble snake skin. It originated about 500 million years ago as magma exuded from under the ocean along tectonic plates. Serpentine is naturally dissolved by rainfall, leaving a thin layer of rocky soil. The barrens dissolve faster than the average bedrock, at a rate of about seven feet per million years. As a result, the area is now lower in elevation than the surrounding bedrock which consists of schist. Serpentine is valued as a decorative building stone and road material.
As soon as we started down the Choate Mine Trail we came across some of the historic chromium mines. Remnants of the baby-gage rail tracks used for hauling out the ore back in the day still led to the gaping mouths of several mines. They were little more than 50-feet diameter holes in the ground. Perhaps they led to more impressive underground mines, but they were fenced off to keep the knuckleheads from killing themselves, so it was impossible to tell.
The magnesium soils may kill off most native plants, but Greenbrier, the thorny scourge of the Coastal Plain, grows there in impenetrable barbed wire thickets, its bright green vines climbing up into the short scraggly trees. In a few more years many of the trees will all be smothered by the relentless plant that is the botanical version of The Borg. Resistance is futile.
The barren soils are also home to stunted oaks and pines, a few tiny white asters, some fluffy grasses, and very little wildlife — the occasional squirrel, a few angry wren, and some crows on the move. The place was eerily empty and quiet. But we did spot the tiniest brown snake I have ever seen.
The white plate rock trail formed thick ledges dotted with multi-colored loose cobbles, resembling a limestone trail in one of the Southwest parks, like Grand Canyon or Zion; the kind of trail where a walking stick comes in handy because you have to watch your step, so you don’t turn an ankle and bust your ass.
There are red Safety Zone – No Hunting signs along both sides of the trail. Deer probably love the place, at least to pass through. And where there are deer, there are always hunters.
The first water we came to was a small braided stream, running at the bottom of the Dolfield Trail. If you are there in the wet season you need to watch for a detour on the left that will take you around what would undoubtedly be a very mushy area. But it was easy to stay dry when we hiked there in late October.
At the higher elevations, which are really only about ten or twenty feet higher than the rocky barrens, we found open woodlands with small trees, good spacing, and very little understory. The more nutrient rich soils in these mini-forests are like shady oases.
At the forest edge, I even spotted an impressive expanse of Milkweed — something I used to see all over the place as a kid when playing in the woods, but which is now almost gone.
The trail began slowly climbing again and we entered an actual forest comprised mostly of young hickories. And at the eastern edge of the park, on the far side of a steep ravine, sat an out-of-place apartment complex. The park was their splendid backyard.
We took a long break, using some fallen, moss-covered logs as benches, before dropping down into a tinkling stream valley where water-loving maples and sycamores were surrounded by bobbing brown fern groves lining the winding drainage bottom. And on the far side of the stream was a psychedelic green hillside synonymous with Baltimore County horsey country. The whole scene resembled a landscape painting entitled “Fall Water”.
Glowing orange leaves drifted on the surface of the water like candy-coated icing on a shimmering cake. And the smell of baked leaves was like Autumn incense. But much like the streams that run through Pennsylvania coal country, the water was crystal clear with an orange tint, but the beauty was deceptive. The water is so acidic that it is devoid of life — no fishes or froggies — and the clarity signals barren delights.
From the stream valley, we limbed out of the forest and up into the serpentine barrens which led us back to the overlook and ultimately to our cars. With our many stops and side explorations, the 4-mile loop took us about three hours. It had been a very rewarding day and a great break from COVID World.
So, the obvious question on your mind is undoubtedly this: Where did the name Soldiers Delight come from? Well, as far back as the late 1600s, rangers in the King’s service referred to the open expanse by that name. No one is sure exactly why, but I’m guessing because it was high ground, easily defended with clear sight lines, and you could see someone coming a mile away. The kind of place where you could kick back, catch some rays, and know you were safe. And it remains true to its name even today.
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Friends of Soldiers Delight NEA
Throwback Thursdays! Take your family on a fun outing during which you all turn into chromium miners for the evening! Participants will pick-up a mining kit, a self-guided audio tour and take themselves on a wide-ranging and educational expedition as a chromium miner in the early 1800s. During your hike, take some selfies with our mining gear and bring the photos back to be added to our mining history wall!Cost: Free! Donations welcome.
To view future events, visit: www.soldiersdelight.org
