Primitive site · Green Ridge State Forest, Maryland

Campsite 78

689 ft southeast-facing hillside

Site 78 is one of the primitive, first-come campsites scattered through Green Ridge State Forest in western Maryland. It sits at 689 ft on a southeast-facing hillside, with running water 140 ft south. The drive in is rated “Rough road”.

Open site 78 in the app See every site on the map

Booking: None. Sites are first come, first served.
Fee: $10 a night for a standard site, $20 for a group site, paid at headquarters. Maryland DNR.
Check in: Sign the sheet at headquarters when you arrive, then go to the site.
Is it free tonight?: This page cannot know. The app shows what the sign-up sheet last showed, with the photo's age.

In short

Hillside, by a creek, rough in, quiet.

Modeled689 ft, southeast-facing hillside.
ModeledRough road, 2.2 mi and 8 min from HQ, 1.9 mi of it unpaved, 17% grade on the way. The pitch sits 135 ft from the road.
ModeledRunning water 141 ft south.
ModeledOut of earshot of the range, the interstate and the freight line.
CommunityChecked on the ground: photographed at the pitch, September 2026.

Modeled from USGS elevation, OpenStreetMap roads and the sun Community reported by campers

On the ground

A photograph of this site

Campsite 78 at Green Ridge State Forest: the picnic table on the pitch under hardwoods. — Photograph by Greenridge. Taken 2026-09-09.

Sun and shade

Hours of direct sun

NESWN 11:00 am · on the pitch

The horizon around site 78, east on the left, south in the middle, west on the right, with the sun's path on 22 October: amber where it reaches the pitch, dashed where the ridge hides it. The fainter arcs are the other dates the site’s 360 view shows. Its highest ridge stands 11.4° above the horizontal to the southwest. Sampled 144 times out to 9 km from the USGS elevation survey. Every sun time on this page is computed against this line.

Hours of direct sun on the pitch by month; the grey behind each bar is the full day the almanac gives with no ridges in the way.

The tallest ground on this site's horizon stands 11.4° above level, to the southwest.

On the March equinox direct sun reaches the pitch at 7:56 am and leaves it at 6:42 pm: 10 h 48 m of it, against 12 h 12 m of daylight on an open horizon.

Direct sun on the pitch, 2026. “Open horizon” is what the same day would give with no ridges in the way.
Date	First light	Last light	Direct sun	Open horizon
20 March	7:56 am	6:42 pm	10 h 48 m	12 h 12 m
21 June	6:06 am	7:58 pm	13 h 54 m	15 h 2 m
21 December	8:26 am	3:54 pm	7 h 30 m	9 h 26 m

Lay of the land

The ground

The elevation model puts the pitch at 689 ft, on a hillside tilted about 13.6° to the southeast.

Within the 1.2 km square sampled around it, the site stands 111 ft above the lowest ground in that square, which lies 0.5 mi northeast and 370 ft below the high ground 0.4 mi southwest.

The nearest mapped water is an unnamed run 140 ft south. OpenStreetMap maps the channel but has no name for it. Treat any water from it before drinking.

20 ft contours, 1.2 km across, from the USGS elevation survey. Watercourses from OpenStreetMap. The dot is the site.

Next door

Nearby sites

Site 77 635 ft away
Hollow, by a creek, easy in, quiet.
Site 76 2873 ft away
Flat shelf, by a creek, rough in, quiet.
Site 75 0.8 mi away
Flat shelf, by a creek, rough in, quiet.
Site 79 0.9 mi away
Flat shelf, by a creek, rough in, some noise.

How to choose between them · All 100 sites

On these shortlists: Quiet · Shaded · Near HQ · Beside water · All shortlists

Evenings here

When the ridge takes the sun

20 MarchSun off the pitch at 6:42 pm, 46 minutes before sunset
21 JuneSun off the pitch at 7:58 pm, 50 minutes before sunset
22 OctoberSun off the pitch at 5:18 pm, 68 minutes before sunset
21 DecemberSun off the pitch at 3:54 pm, 62 minutes before sunset

For tonight, with the moon, darkness and the overnight low, open Site 78 in the app.

What happened near here

DNR's plan counts hunters as the largest group of people who use Green Ridge, and calls it one of the most popular public hunting areas in Maryland.

A hunter's forest · 1916–today · about 2 mi from this site, at Hunter's Cabin

Hunters are the largest group of people who use Green Ridge, and DNR's plan calls it one of the most popular public hunting areas in Maryland. Maryland began licensing hunters in 1916. As printed in DNR's 2019 plan, licence sales peaked at about 180,000 in the early 1970s and later fell to about 135,000. The hunting camps came early. A 1920s board-and-batten cabin on Oldtown Road, surveyed in the 1970s, is one of many such vacation and hunting cabins once scattered through these mountains, and a nineteenth-century log farmhouse on Appel Road was by then lived in only in hunting season. In 1975 the owner of the Little Orleans store told the Cumberland News that his busiest week of the year was deer season. In the 1990–91 seasons hunters reported 1,360 deer taken in the forest, and DNR estimated a herd of about 3,590, or 35 to 45 deer per square mile. In October 2004 Maryland held its first black bear season in 51 years. Most of the forest is open to hunting and trapping in season; target shooting is allowed only at the forest's shooting range, which was paid for with hunting licence fees and is used by permit from headquarters.

What is left to see: The forest's shooting range on US 40 Scenic, near the end of the driving tour; permits are sold only at headquarters. Check Maryland's current hunting season dates before walking the woods in autumn.

Sources (4)

More of the forest’s history

Where these numbers come from

Provenance

Most of this page is computed from public data; the lines marked Community come from campers. The computed data was last rebuilt from its sources on 28 September 2026.

Elevation, landform, slope, aspect, contours, the horizon profile and the steepest grade on the approach come from the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP), read from its elevation tiles.
Roads and watercourses come from OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed ODbL, as mapped at that rebuild. A road can wash out or close after it.
Sun times are when the sun clears that measured skyline, computed with the NOAA Solar Calculator equations. They are for 2026 and shift by a minute or two from year to year.
The pin comes from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources campsite GIS layer.
Evenings here are the same sun times, on four dates of the year: when the sun drops behind this pitch's measured skyline, against the open-horizon sunset.
What happened near here comes from published history: Maryland Historical Trust survey forms, Maryland DNR, the National Park Service and the C&O Canal's historians, and the records themselves. Each story lists its own sources; a story appears only when one of its catalogued places is within about two miles, and the distance is measured, not estimated. All the history sources.
The modeled view and the 360 are rendered from a 3D model of the forest, from the pitch, through a whole day in each of five seasons. The ground is the same elevation data plus lidar. Tree heights come from lidar; the species mix and tree form come from US Forest Service inventory plots in Allegany County, so no tree here was surveyed individually. The tent, table and fire ring are the same stand-ins at every site. When a photograph from the site, ours or one a camper sends, shows the model is wrong about where the pitch is or what the ground is like, the model is corrected and the 360 is rendered again. How the 360 is made.
Character tags and field notes come from campers. They are judgements rather than measurements.
Availability is not on this page because nothing publishes it. The app shows what the last photograph of the sign-up sheet said, and how old that photograph is.

Greenridge is independent and is not affiliated with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources or any government agency. The forest's own rules apply.

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