Blue Mash Nature Trail

My sister introduced me to Blue Mash Nature Trail.  It's the perfect place for bird watchers.  You can park at the entrance on Zion Road, where they have a bird siting notebook in a wood box, which I assume fellow bird watchers contribute to.

This trail system is behind the Blue Mash golf course.  It travels through beautiful fields of wildflowers, woods, and around a pond.  There are bird houses in all the fields visible from the path.  I'm not a bird watcher, but I imagine this place as paradise to someone who is.

There is one confusing spot on the trail, if you start from the Zion Road parking lot, heading parallel to Zion Road, you come upon a long hill, where the trail turns left running along the hill.  But the trail hits a dead end and a trail sign looks like it's pointing at the hill.  So we walked up on top of the hill, which is actually bordering the pond and walked back in the direction we came from.  As we got to the point where the original trail comes in, we realized that this hill top path continues around the other side of the pond, so we follow it and realize that this is the right direction.  Just a heads up and hopefully my description of where to go helps.

The section of trail near Zion Road is for hikers only, but this trail system connects to a trail system open to equestrians as well.  This other section of trail leads behind an old land fill and connects to a parking lot on Route 108 at the Fieldcrest Road intersection.

The entire trail circuit runs 3.7 miles. There are a couple smaller loops you can complete.  If you want to do the whole entire trail, you will have to double back once you reach the end.

For more information, please visit this website:
http://www.montgomeryparks.org/PPSD/ParkTrails/trails_MAPS/blue_mash.shtm