Campsite 81
532 ft southwest-facing hillside
Site 81 is one of the primitive, first-come campsites scattered through Green Ridge State Forest in western Maryland. It sits at 532 ft on a southwest-facing hillside, with Fifteenmile Creek 170 ft south. The drive in is rated “Rough road”.
The ground it sits on
The elevation model puts the pitch at 532 ft, on a hillside tilted about 18.1° to the southwest.
Within the 1.2 km square sampled around it, the site stands 447 ft below the high ground 0.4 mi southeast.
The nearest mapped water is Fifteenmile Creek, 170 ft south.
What the ridges do to its light
The tallest ground on this site's horizon stands 32.6° above level, to the northeast.
On the March equinox direct sun reaches the pitch at 8:36 am and leaves it at 7:06 pm: 10 h 32 m of it, against 12 h 12 m of daylight on an open horizon.
That gap — 1 h 40 m — is what the ridges take, and it is rarely taken evenly off both ends of the day.
Across the year the pitch runs from 11 h 52 m of direct sun at the June solstice down to 7 h 12 m at the December solstice.
| Date | First light | Last light | Direct sun | Open horizon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 March | 8:36 am | 7:06 pm | 10 h 32 m | 12 h 12 m |
| 21 June | 8:12 am | 8:02 pm | 11 h 52 m | 15 h 2 m |
| 21 December | 8:42 am | 3:52 pm | 7 h 12 m | 9 h 26 m |
Rough road
Loose, rutted or steep in places. Low cars will scrape.
You arrive on Mountain Road, which OpenStreetMap classes as a minor public road with an unpaved surface.
1.4 mi of unpaved driving stands between the last pavement and the site.
The steepest stretch of that final approach measures 16.0% on the elevation model, climbing 112 ft in total.
The pitch opens directly off the road — no carry.
Measured
- Unpaved approach
- 1.4 mi
- Steepest grade
- 16.0%
- Total climb
- 112 ft
- Road to pitch
- here
Provenance
Everything on this page is derived from open data at build time. None of it is anyone's opinion, and none of it was measured on foot.
- 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 terrain-RGB tiles at zoom 14.
- Roads and watercourses come from OpenStreetMap contributors, licensed ODbL.
- Sun times are computed from the NOAA Solar Calculator equations against that measured skyline — when the sun clears the ridge, not when an almanac says it rises. Figures are for 2026; they shift by a minute or two from year to year.
- Campsite coordinates come from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources campsite GIS layer.
- Character tags and field notes come from campers, and are the only thing here that is a judgement rather than a measurement.
- Availability comes from nowhere, because there is no source for it. See above.
Greenridge is an independent community project. It is not affiliated with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources or any government agency, and the forest's own rules always win.