Montgomery County’s Paint Branch Trail a fun one to explore

Posted on by Vanessa Junkin (She Runs by the Seashore)
Paved trail winding through the woods in the winter.
Here’s one of the hills on the Paint Branch Trail (Vanessa Junkin photo).

I’m always a fan of running in new areas, so after spending the night at my aunt and uncle’s house in Montgomery County on Christmas, I decided to find a new-to-me trail on my way home the next day. The Paint Branch Trail was not too far away and was a nice paved option.

I parked in a parking lot at Martin Luther King Jr. Park and followed the trail into the woods at Johnson Road. It was pretty empty on the day I ran, but I saw a couple people along the way (it was a workday for many – Tuesday, Dec. 26). The trail went alongside a waterway called Paint Branch, and there were different parks along the way. The trail linked Martin Luther King Jr. Park with Pilgrim Hills Local Park, Valley Mill Special Park, Tamarack Neighborhood Park and Paint Branch Neighborhood Park.

Waterway with rocks on both sides shown in the woods in the winter.
Paint Branch can be seen from much of the trail (Vanessa Junkin photo).

At Tamarack Neighborhood Park, there were basketball courts and play equipment right along the trail. There were also connections from the trail to nearby neighborhoods. There were signs along the way that had information about how far it was to the next park.

I did a comfortable run-walk on the paved trail until Fairland Road, then turned around and headed back to my car. To switch it up, I ran on a wooded trail that went in the same direction as the paved trail but was closer to the water, before getting back on the trail. The exit of that part wasn’t super obvious without looking at my phone to navigate.

Female runner in blue long-sleeve shirt and blue shorts running on a paved trail in the woods
I got an action shot of myself running on the trail.

Some of the trail was flat, but there were also sections that had some pretty big hills (at least for me, as a flatlander). When I did the elevation correct on Garmin Connect, it logged 176 feet of elevation gain over five miles.

The trail also went past the sites of some former mills, and there were signs that listed information about the histories.

Montgomery County has so many trails, and I look forward to exploring another one next time I’m in the area! Learn more about the Paint Branch Trail here. It says the trail is three miles one way; I did not log that amount but I also didn’t take every path off the trail or run more in Martin Luther King Jr. Park other than to get to and from my car (and to make an even five miles).