QUEEN ANNE’S — Tuckahoe State Park, in cooperation with the Department of Natural Resources’ Office of Outdoor Recreation, invites you to celebrate National Trails Day on Saturday, June 1, with a full day of family-friendly programs at the park. In accordance with the Maryland Park Service’s theme for 2024, “step forward in nature and back in time,” visitors will be invited to take part in activities such as guided walks, prize raffles, a fishing derby, informational displays, archery programs and much more.
The day’s event will kick off at 10 a.m. with a ribbon-cutting for Tuckahoe’s new Lore of the Land: Sensory Trail.
Sensory trails — often planned specifically for people with disabilities, especially those with sensory impairments — encourage visitors to use more of their senses and benefit all ages and abilities. The easy-to-navigate loop trail provides a series of stations designed to collectively immerse people in a multi-sensory journey. They learn to recognize different sounds, textures and smells along the trail, thereby gaining confidence in their own abilities to interpret the environment at their own pace.
For Tuckahoe Seasonal Ranger Autumn Berry, who was instrumental in developing Tuckahoe’s sensory trail, it was personal.
“My mother has retinitis pigmentosa, and it’s difficult for her to enjoy outdoor experiences because of her visual limitations; I’ve seen her struggle with the terrain on normal trails,” she said. “With that in mind, I wanted to develop different stations that would allow people like her to touch and feel natural items normally encountered while walking the trails without fear of getting disoriented or even worse, getting hurt.”
The day’s guided walks will have something for everyone: opportunities to learn about habitat restoration projects, see Maryland’s wildlife up close, and journey back in time to hear more about the people who lived in the area before it became a state park. June 1 is also a “free fishing day” in Maryland, so all are invited to take part in the fishing derby at the lake. With so much on the schedule, every visitor is sure to find something of interest.
National Trails Day is held annually on the first Saturday in June and recognizes the incredible benefits federal, state and local trails provide. Events held throughout the country help promote awareness of the wide variety of services the trails systems offer, and encourage people to discover their local trails, become active concerning trail issues, and share their excitement for the outdoors.
For more information about National Trails Day events at Tuckahoe State Park, call the park at 410-820-1668.
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