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Upper Paint Branch Stream Valley Park

Upper Paint Branch Stream Valley Park Trails
Upper Paint Branch Stream Valley Park Trails

Upper Paint Branch Stream Valley Park

The roughly 1,200-acre Upper Paint Branch Stream Valley Park is a Best Natural Area containing some of the highest quality and unique park natural resources in Montgomery County. A rich network of seeps and wetlands and an extensive series of coldwater headwater tributaries to Paint Branch underlain by schist bedrock host a diversity of aquatic life, including a naturally reproducing brown trout population. The Upper Paint Branch is nationally renowned for this self-sustaining coldwater fishery which persists within the urban and suburban regional surroundings.

Interspersed throughout this stream valley park are many rich wetlands filled with mayapple, skunk cabbage, spring beauty and colonies of trout lily. These wetlands are important for plant and wildlife diversity, groundwater recharge, and for filtering sediment and other pollutants, in turn promoting high water quality needed by spawning trout and other sensitive organisms. Some of the ponded wetland areas contain large spring peeper and wood frog populations that result in a cacophonous chorus of song each spring.

Upper Paint Branch Stream Valley Park encompasses a number of Paint Branch tributaries, and there are considerable variations in the aquatic and terrestrial communities among each. The Good Hope Tributary area hosts the largest contiguous tract of forest in the Upper Paint Branch watershed and its gently rolling uplands are dominated by tuliptree and white oak. There is a delightful diversity of native wildflowers such as dwarf ginseng, rue anemone, cranefly orchid, spring beauty, and rattlesnake plantain and a well-developed understory that features mountain laurel, pinxter flower, highbush blueberry, and witch hazel. The extensive forested stream buffers and upland drainage area result in relatively silt-free stream bottoms and cold stream temperatures, making the Good Hope Tributary the most dependable spawning and nursery area for Brown Trout. Spring-fed flow and ample shading along the Gum Springs Tributary also support brown trout reproduction. The upper reaches, in particular, include large areas of wetlands, seeps and springs which line both sides of the stream.

The Left Fork tributary of the Paint Branch has particularly nice forested land from Maydale Conservation Park south to Peach Orchard Road with large tuliptree and white oak and numerous other species such as serviceberry, American hazelnut, and dogwood spread throughout. South of Peach Tree Road are some impressively large tuliptree, white oak, and red maple trees. There is a rich variety of native herbs including wood anemone, dwarf ginseng, yellow trout lily, and a wide variety of native ferns. A stream restoration project was completed in October 2010 to promote fish passage, stabilize banks, protect and enhance wetlands, and improve stream form and function and long-term stability overall.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) designated the Paint Branch watershed upstream of Fairland Road a “Special Trout Management Area” in 1980.  This was the first designation of its kind in the state and was intended to give designated streams special status and maximum protection afforded by state regulations. Additional County regulations through the Upper Paint Branch Special Protection Area are in place, including impervious area limits and expanded hydrologic buffers, to ensure continued high water quality. The stream quality in the Paint Branch and its tributaries north of Fairland Road ranges from fair to excellent and varies over time. In addition to brown trout, the Upper Paint Branch Stream Valley park hosts an impressive 28 species of fish, including other relative pollution intolerant species such as rosyside dace, fantail darter, and Blue Ridge sculpin.