Sunday was a beautiful spring day. Probably the most perfect day you could ask for when going out for a ride. The trees were bright green from the budding new leaves, it was in the low-mid 60s, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I’ve been researching trails and parks within the Baltimore-Washington corridor for going on Sunday rides and the BWI trail loop stood out to me as one worth trying. It’s a good distance at 10.5-11 miles and I didn’t even know this trail existed until a few weeks ago.
Parking for the BWI trail
Getting there was slightly more complicated because I initially thought that 176 intersected with 195 but I didn’t realize until a little too late so we ended up driving around almost the entire airport before finding the parking lot we were aiming for. We arrived around 12:30 pm and the parking lot was crowded. All the spots were filled and there were at least a 1/2 dozen cars waiting for spots to open up. We 3-point turned out of there and went in search of another place to park.
We drove a less than half a mile down the road towards I-97 before noticing a dirt-patch parking area. This wasn’t a place listed on the websites I had read about but there were no signs prohibiting parking anywhere around the parking lot. It was obvious that at least 2-3 other cars had done the same thing because they had bike racks hanging off the back of the car. Another 1-2 cars were there from people parking to fish in the pond adjacent. So it turned out to be the most convenient alternative parking for the BWI Trail Loop.
Directions and Views of BWI
We started our ride following the trail in the clockwise direction. I was expecting the loop to be more attached and in view of the airport and I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t really at all. You have a few great spots to observe airport goings-on but the rest of the trail is along other roads and through some wooded areas.
