South Mountain State Park
Managed by Maryland Park Service
103 acres1.8 mi of trail
Appalachian National Scenic Trail
🐕 Dog rules not recorded
No trailhead mapped yetWebsite ↗
Outdoors in Highfield-Cascade
3.6 miles of trails in Highfield-Cascade
About 11% of Highfield-Cascade is conserved land, roughly 124 acres. There are about 3.6 miles of mapped trails, and the biggest networks are in South Mountain State Park (1.8 mi) and Pen Mar Park (0.9 mi).
Conserved land
11%
124 of 1,103 acres
Trails
3.6 mi
2.1 mi per sq mi · 2 on conserved land
Parks & preserves
3
114 conserved acres per 1,000 people
Bike routes
0.0 mi
What kind of outdoors town is Highfield-Cascade?
Read from the map. The page puts what stands out first.
The map
Conserved land, trails & bike routes
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it.
Easements protect land from building but are usually private.© OpenStreetMap contributors · USGS PAD-US
★ What stands out · Places to walk
Pick a walk
The longest trail network is South Mountain State Park, with 1.8 miles. Directions go to the nearest trailhead or public parking.
Pen Mar Park
Park
42 acres0.9 mi of trail
Appalachian National Scenic Trail
🐕 Dog rules not recorded
Directionsto the parking lot
Appalachian National Scenic Trail
Managed by National Park Service
13 acres0.1 mi of trail
🐕 Dogs usually limited
Directionsto the parking lotWebsite ↗
Things to do
3 places to go in Highfield-Cascade
Beaches, playgrounds, peaks, falls and more. Pick a kind.
Playgrounds in Highfield-Cascade
Scenic views in Highfield-Cascade
Trails & water
1 named trail
Named trails
Unpaved · 1.2 mi
Appalachian National Scenic Trail1.2 mi
Who protects it
124 conserved acres
Who manages Highfield-Cascade’s conserved land, from the USGS Protected Areas Database. Approximate, because parcels can overlap.
State natural resources100 ac
National Park Service14 ac
County7 ac
Not recorded104 ac
State Park · 196 acNational Scenic or Historic Trail · 14 acLocal Other or Unknown · 6 acLocal Park · 4 acConservation Easement · 3 ac
Good to know
Conserved doesn’t always mean open to visitors. 3 acres are conservation easements, usually private land. Public access isn’t recorded for 3 of 8 parcels. The walks above are places people visit.
The biggest protected places
| Place | Managed by | Acres | Public access |
|---|---|---|---|
| South Mountain Sp State Park | Not recorded | 99 | Unknown |
| South Mountain State Park State Park | State natural resources | 97 | Open |
| Appalachian National Scenic Trail National Scenic or Historic Trail | National Park Service | 14 | Open |
| County Land Local Other or Unknown | Not recorded | 6 | Unknown |
| Pen Mar Local Park | County | 3 | Open |
| Washington County Local Park | County | 2 | Open |
Biking & sports
0.0 miles of bike routes
Bike lanes are often missing from the map in smaller towns, so that number is likely low.
0.0 mi
painted or protected bike lanes
0.0 mi
off-road bike paths
0.0 mi
shoulders & shared lanes
Courts & fields
1Basketball
Includes school and college facilities, which aren’t always open to the public.
Next door
Highfield-Cascade and its neighbors
Highfield-Cascade has the second most mapped trails of the 4 towns around it. Tap a town to see its outdoors.
| Town | Conserved | Parks |
|---|---|---|
| Highfield-Cascade | 11.3% | 3 |
| Fort Ritchie | 89.6% | 1 |
| Washington | 15.6% | 10 |
| Pen Mar | 8.8% | 1 |
Trail talk
Conditions, parking and favorite walks from Highfield-Cascade neighbors.
Weigh in
Is South Mountain State Park the best walk in Highfield-Cascade?
Your answer becomes a post in Town Square.
Share a tip
Trails, parks, preserves, courts and bike lanes © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), map data as of 2026-09-28. Conserved land: USGS Gap Analysis Project, PAD-US. Measured against the Census town boundary.
How we measure
"Trails" are OpenStreetMap paths, bridleways, public tracks and unpaved footways, plus footways inside a park or preserve or on a named trail route. Sidewalks are left out. Areas are counted on a 20-meter grid, so overlapping parcels count once. "Conserved" includes conservation easements, which protect land from development but are usually private property. Trailheads are the nearest marked trailhead, public parking lot or information board within about 150 meters of a preserve. Dog rules come from OpenStreetMap when someone has tagged them; otherwise we show what’s typical for the land manager, or say the rules aren’t recorded.