Savage River

Up near the headwaters of the Savage River, deep in a gorge so steep that some trees could never be reached and cut by loggers, you can travel back in time.The destination: one of the last pockets of remote, untouched woodlands in Maryland. About 1,000 acres of "old growth" forest still exist in the state. Most of what's left is here, in the Savage River drainage basin in Garrett County.You can't get there by car. On this day, reaching one particular old-growth stand required a two-hour walk from the nearest dirt road.

For some months there has been an intensified effort to get Maryland's people more involved in the state's forests and parks -- not just the so-called showcases, but all the facilities, from Savage River State Forest to Assateague State Park.In the past couple of months we have written largely about the effort to recruit volunteers to help with staffing at parks closed because of budget problems. But there is a new program being developed that is designed to give virtually anyone interested as large a helping of the outdoors as he or she can handle.

DICKERSON -- Jon Lugbill climbed out of the steaming, 60-degree water into the frigid morning air and looked as if he would shout for joy."This is absolutely wonderful," said the five-time Whitewater World Champion after demonstrating the new man-made whitewater course at the Potomac Electric Power Company's Dickerson power plant in Montgomery County. "It came out of nowhere and it's good enough right now to have the world championships right here."The U.S. whitewater team can now stay home.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources will hold public hearings next month on whether the state should allow developers to build wind turbines in state forests, a proposal being advanced by a Pennsylvania company. U.S. Wind Force is asking the state for leases in Potomac State Forest and Savage River State Forest in Western Maryland so it can clear about 400 mountaintop acres and raise about 100 wind turbines. The machines would be about 40 stories tall and would be visible from some of the region's most popular recreation areas, including Deep Creek Lake and the Savage River Reservoir.

During the past several years, a world-class trout fishery has been built up in the lower Savage River by controlling water releases from a Corps of Engineers dam north of Luke. Now, there is concern among trout fishermen in Western Maryland that Mother Nature may take it back.The Lower Savage, by all accounts, is an extraordinary fishery for brook and brown trout, with natural reproduction allowing the fish population to expand and special fishing regulations to limit harvest.But, this year, the unexpected has happened.

Despite an impressive last-ditch effort, Maryland failed today to land a position as host of an Olympic Festival in 1994 or 1995.The U.S. Olympic Festival Committee in Dallas awarded the 1993 festival to San Antonio, the 1994 competition to St. Louis and the 1995 event to Denver. The 1996 Olympics are in Atlanta.The Olympic Festival, which will be held in Los Angeles this summer, involves competition in 37 sports in non-Olympic years.In addition to Baltimore, South Florida also lost out in the bidding.

BLOOMINGTON -- This town knows death -- usually by trucks. Proof is found in 18 faded white crosses at the foot of Cemetery Hill, each marking the fatal crash of a truck whose brakes failed. But today, this tight-knit community on the border of Garrett and Allegany counties and West Virginia is burying Eddie Lee Rogers, a 15-year-old who died in an unexpected way last Sunday, when an out-of-control coal train smashed through his house just yards away from the tracks. "No one ever dreamed that the train would run off the track," says Alice Howard, Bloomington's historian and one of its oldest residents.

Another premier Maryland trout stream has become tainted by an invasive algae feared worldwide for its ability to coat the bottom of rivers and lakes and smother the habitat and food supply of fish. Biologists at the Department of Natural Resources announced Wednesday that didymo, known by anglers as "rock snot," was found in Garrett County's Savage River late last month. "There's nothing we can do short of closing the area down, and that's draconian," said Don Cosden, inland fisheries director.

BLOOMINGTON -- Kara Ruppel traveled the ultimate in highs and lows for an athlete yesterday.Ruppel, a University of Maryland senior, apparently had made the U.S. Olympic team one minute, then found out five minutes later she was off the team when officials discovered that Seattle's Maylon Hanold actually had earned the third and final spot on the women's single kayak team.Hanold, in a change of scheduling from Saturday, had the last run of the day and turned in a 161.68 score to take the third spot from Ruppel (165.

PUZZLEY RUN -- Deep in a state forest near this Garrett County stream, a fluorescent pink ribbon marks the spot where local officials hope to find the water to supply a growing community and spur economic development in one of the poorest regions of Maryland. But the ribbon is attached to a metal stake driven into the ground under a hemlock tree in a Sensitive Management Area in Savage River State Forest, where a state management plan prohibits "resource extraction." Changes in that plan require public comment, yet the state Department of Natural Resources has granted the nearby town of Grantsville permission to drill a test well on the site without asking for public opinion.