Going through the parks in Jefferson County, in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia I saw Sam Michaels Park, which is a few miles from our place. It’s a large community park, sitting between the towns of Shepherdstown and Charles Town. The vast park has a large community center, a fenced in dog park, soccer fields, baseball fields, huge playground and hiking trails.
Now then…I’d say the trails are not all trails, and some are “suggestions”. By that, you might find yourself wandering across fields in a general direction. And that is OK, just know that.
We checked out two trails on our visit. The first was paved, the other…well, it was both a trail and then just petered out. We picked a way and got back to the car. So it works.
See here for a map.
We turned into the park off of Job Corps Road, onto the main road and drove up to the community center parking lot. The main road does go thru the park and you can exit/enter farther there. Walk down the park road to find the start of the trail (or start at the parking lot, but we wanted to explore).
This paved path starts below the Veterans Pavilion (a covered picnic area). On the map it is shown as a red trail.
This trail is paved. And has benches to rest on should one want to sit.
Along the edge of the park is a neighborhood, a bonus for them, for sure.
All the hallmarks of a kids’ summer camp with the cute corner on the trail to sit and pretend one is camping.
This is a perimeter trail along here.
The park has a disc golf course, and that goes straight ahead, the paved trail turn to the right, and then eventually to the right, curving back to the visitor center.
This almost loop is about half a mile long.
We had passed a sign, so walked back down the paved path to it, to do the “ballfield loop”.
The arrow pointed into the trees.
Which was easy enough to figure out.
Look! Actual trail!
It came to a junction of sorts, where the disc golf course comes in from the left. We turned right and went over a well built bridge. There was what I would call walking areas below, on both sides. A lot to explore after bug season.
The path was up high here. Don’t stop. It’s still wet out here, and the bugs have woken. You’ll get swarmed. They might not bite, but want to get annoy you as much as they can.
The path came around the back of the baseball fields and stopped. It was nothing but fields, with no signs or paths to show which way. So we just picked a high side and walked the grass, to escape the gnat like flies. Looking at the map we should have gone to the left-ish to go around all the fields. Oops. We cut between.
Our aim was to come out straight where we could see the dog park. Then turned right and followed the edge of the field back to the paved path and headed to the car.
There’s more trail on the other side of the park, and you can walk the fields for more miles. You won’t get lost, it’s mostly open fields. Just go earlier in the day, before it warms up.
Plenty of parking, not a lot of shade though. Park is free to use. Leashed dog friendly.
~Sarah