Froggy Hollow Trail
Use	Multi-use (Hk, Bk, Eq)
West Trailhead	Clarksburg Road Parking Lot
East Trailhead	Burnt Hill Road
Distance	1.1 mile
Nearest Parking	Froggy Hollow Trailhead parking lot on Clarksburg Road
Summary	The western end of this trail was recently re-routed around a steep decline. After switchbacking downhill and along a stream bed, the trail enters a shaded flat stretch through healthy wetland. The trail passes an historic schoolhouse with good creek views, and ends at the edge of an unmown meadow.

Narrative Direction: East from Clarksburg Road trailhead at parking lot

The trail begins in a small meadow surrounding the Froggy Hollow parking lot. Soon after it leaves the meadow, it enters a grove of mature pines which it passes through as it gradually moves down hill. See the photo below.

After a couple of hundred yards, the trail will emerge into a more open area. You will notice hundreds of non-native invasive Oriental bittersweet vines swinging from the trees here. The Parks Dept recently began an effort to eradicate the vines (notice that most of the vines have been cut). Eventually the vines will fall off the trees and decompose into soil. Underfoot, the availability of more sunlight along this part of the trail has contributed to the grassy underfooting here. See the photo below.

Soon the trail enters healthy, mature hardwood forest as it follows the edge of the ridge down hill and away from Little Bennett Creek. You are now entering a new segment of Froggy Hollow trail that was part of the re-routing effort. See the photo below.

At the bottom of the hill, there are two rocky crossings over intermittent streambeds as the trail makes a U-turn and heads back down toward the Little Bennett wetland area.

Froggy Hollow soon enters the Little Bennett Creek basin which you will pass through for the next several hundred yards. The trail here is under thick hardwood and pine canopy. There is a thick carpet of pine needles underfoot along portions of the trail here. And you will see many ferns here, too.

Eventually you will cross a small wooden bridge over an intermittent feeder stream into Little Bennett.

A little farther on you will see a clearing start to emerge. You are approaching Kingsley schoolhouse, a prominent Park historical feature. A photo of the wooden bridge over Little Bennett creek to the schoolhouse is below.

After passing the schoolhouse, the Froggy Hollow trail surface changes to gravel bed, and widens to perhaps 20 feet. It is for about 150 yards a continuation of the former Hyattstown Road that is now Kingsley Trail on the opposite side of the creek. The creek down below to your left is Kingsley Tributary and it empties into Little Bennett Creek at the schoolhouse.

While you are on this straight but scenic stretch of the trail, you are totally enveloped in forest canopy, as shown in the photo below.

Froggy Hollow soon swerves to the right, however, and switches from gravel bed surface back to natural surface again. There is much undergrowth here, a sign of the wetland environment you are in.

In just a short way you come to a small stream crossing. There are a couple of large boulders you can use to make your way across.

Soon after this stream crossing, Froggy Hollow trail encounters and surmounts a 50 foot knoll overlooking Kingsley Tributary. The trail passes over the steep little hill in about 200 yards.

On the other side of the hill, the trail becomes a mown path. The mown trail soon comes to an unmown meadow which it skirts for 100 yards or so before reaching its eastern trailhead on Burnt Hill Road. The photo below shows Froggy Hollow trail skirting the meadow near its eastern trailhead on Burnt Hill Road.