Cunningham Falls State Park
Cunningham Falls State Park
6709 Cunningham Falls Park Rd
Thurmont, MD 21788
301-271-7574
October 27 – 31, 2024
Cunningham Falls State Park in Maryland was a bit of a challenge. The park has two campgrounds located several miles apart: the William Houck Area and the Manor Area, each with its own address, so campers are instructed to make sure to use the right address for their campground when finding directions. We were staying at the Manor Area, which was the only one staying open through the end of October. However, the William Houck Area is the only one with a dump station, which was closed when we were there. We were told by the park ranger that the dump station might still be usable after the campground closed (it wasn’t) or that we could use the dump station at the Gambrill State Park 20 minutes away. We were hoping to dump our tanks on arrival, since our previous campground had also not had a dump station, but we’d only been there one night so we decided to just wait till the next campground.
Also, while the park had water available, the signs indicating the water stations were pretty hard to spot. But I managed to locate one and fill my water tank.
Then I finally got to my site, which was the most sloped site I’d ever had the misfortune to camp in. After much messing with my leveling blocks, I finally got the front tires under three blocks each, but the van was still so unlevel I could hardly get the sliding door open, and I felt like I was going to fall over every time I stood up in the van.
My brother and SIL had their own issues — their site was more level, but the roads in the campground were narrow and the sites at sharp angles, and there were trees and boulders on the side of the road, making maneuvering a large trailer into the site quite a feat. I was again very glad I’d traded my truck and trailer for a camper van.
Despite our issues getting in and set up, it was a pretty park with lots of trees and nice sites with good privacy. The bathhouse was in the middle of the loop, with a path to it from behind J&J’s site, so I could just go across the road and through their site to get to it.
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