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[Narrator] Coming up nature's great engineers chew on a vexing problem.

And adventures in traversing Maryland's Appalachian Trail.

[Kasey Kohlmeier] They hold onto it.

And biting (laugh).

[Narrator] Next.

Outdoors Maryland is produced in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

♪ ♪ [footsteps] [rev of engine] [roar of waterfall] [splashing] [waves rushing] [hooves clopping] [beating of wings] ♪ ♪ [Forest Mays] Hey, come on, let's go.

We had one.

I was like, what is that?

Come out at night, didn't know he was out here.

[Narrator] Forest Mays woke one morning to discover he had new neighbors.

[Forest] And then you started seeing a few small trees cut down over there.

[Narrator] Furry neighbors.

Castor canadensis, the North American beaver between 25 and 60 pounds of pure chewing machine.

[Forest] And then about three years ago, we saw two of them at once.

They started bringing sticks, maybe two or three inches in diameter... starting to form a teepee.

[Narrator] The beavers dammed the creek below his pond, feasted on his willow trees, plugged the storm drain.

[Forest] They would come up here at night and make a dam.

And in the daytime I would dig it up.

[chuckles] [Narrator] And one day a trapper arrived, sent by concerned neighbors to root out the pesky rodents.

The entire episode came as a shock because Forest doesn't live in rural Maryland.

He lives in the heart of Annapolis.

[Claudia Donegan] Oh yeah, there's a mud spot now that's probably a lodge.

[Narrator] A scouting party sets out in Tuckahoe State Park on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

[Claudia Donegan] I'm pretty sure it's an active beaver lodge.

At least from this angle it looks... [Narrator] This neighborhood is getting more crowded as well.

[Jessica Conway] Oh, I see it.

[Narrator] Just 20 years ago there might have been a handful of beavers at Tuckahoe.

[Jessica Conway] I see it.

[Claudia] The ones at the bridge have been like super active.

Have you seen the beavers yet?

[Narrator] Today, Park Ranger Jessica Conway says the population has grown dramatically, building lodges up and down the parks waterways.

[Jessica] They used to be regularly trapped in this region and they're no longer trapped.

[Claudia] It has a little bit of fresh mud over here.

[Narrator] Claudia Donegan manages Habitat Restoration Programs for Maryland's Department of Natural Resources.

[Claudia] Wow.

Usually if you have a really active beaver lodge, you're gonna have a lot of greenery submerged in the water 'cause their way to store food is to take green sticks full of leaves and tuck 'em down in the edge of their lodge.

I was here in the winter stalking these beavers.

♪♪ And the young lived with the parents for like two years and then they're pushed out and then they need to go build a lodge for themselves.

And people think, oh there's a beaver.

What's it doing in, you know, near downtown Annapolis?

It's just literally traveling from one river course to another.

[Jessica] We're gonna head across the lake over towards the other lodge.

[Narrator] It shouldn't surprise anyone if they see more beavers in Maryland parks.

It's now park policy.

[Claudia] This was pretty active within the last year.

There could be a whole family sleeping in there right now.

[Jessica] It's their habitat and we can share the land with them.

Makes for a really fun paddle and beautiful evenings watching them.

[Narrator] The beavers aren't much trouble at Tuckahoe.

The deeper water means they're content to build lodges on the muddy slopes alongside waterways.

No need for dams, no need for trappers, but in other parks they can cause trouble.

♪♪ North Point State Park, just a few miles from Baltimore, this part of the park has been transformed into the black marsh wildlands, an area diligently maintained by flat tailed furry rodents.

[Shannon Davis] The beaver here were causing a little trouble with this trail.

[Narrator] Shannon Davis is a Maryland State Park Ranger.

[Shannon Davis] It's a very popular hiking trail for birders.

[Narrator] When park visitors began complaining that a beaver dam was flooding their favorite hiking trail, the Park Service called in Scott McGill, CEO of Ecotone, an environmental services company.

[Scott McGill] The beaver are the engineers around here.

[Narrator] Today, he's returned to North Point with dozens of the country's leading authorities on beaver biology and behavior.

[Chris Jordan] Beaver have two things that they need out of the world.

[Narrator] Chris Jordan is a Biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

[Chris] They need water that's deep enough so they can escape predation.

Couple beaver bodies deep and they need something to eat.

So by building a dam, they make deeper water or by digging canals they can spread the water out and the vegetation, the things that they eat have been used to being eaten by beaver for millions of years.

And so when beaver chew on those plants, those plants respond by making more beaver food.

So they cut down a tree and rather than one big tree, there's lots of little sprouts that come off of that and that's what the beaver wants to eat.

[Narrator] Chris and Scott are advocates of a new approach to beavers.

Instead of pushing beavers aside, they say we should welcome the animal world's great engineers.

Ecotone installed a pond leveler at North Point, a simple drain to carry water past the beavers to guarantee that the pond's water wouldn't rise above a certain point.

[Shannon] Beaver have been busy, but they have not flooded it.

There's a little problem area lower down where they have another smaller dam that we might have to take action on at some point.

[Narrator] In the past 500 years, humans have dramatically changed the landscape of Maryland and particularly the hydrology of the region.

Wetlands became farms, meandering streams became deep, narrow gullies, asphalt and storm drains rush water through and below our neighborhoods into the Chesapeake Bay.

That brush of water carries silt and nitrogen based fertilizers that threaten the Bay's future.

[Chris] Some of the things that we need now as society, like cool water, clean water, control of movement of sediment, control of wildfire in the west, all of those come from a functioning natural environment.

[line zipping] [Narrator] There were millions of beavers in the Chesapeake watershed before Europeans arrived and water moved much more slowly in their world.

Marshes spread across much larger areas.

Different trees and different animals benefited.

Soil tended to stay where it was.

Wetland flora absorbed nutrients before they reached open water.

And you don't need to look any further than North Point Park to see how important that was.

This beaver wetland is literally the last chance to slow water before it enters the Chesapeake Bay.

[Chris] That's the whole idea of nature-based solutions.

And because the maintenance contract is by a rodent, it's gonna be a lot cheaper.

♪♪ [Narrator] Joppa Maryland, the County Park Service installed a pond leveler here to protect the trail at Robert Copenhaver Park.

[Scott McGill] This is where the Little Gunpowder and the Big Gunpowder come together.

[Narrator] Joppatown was once a thriving colonial port on the Gunpowder River, but agriculture and deforestation brought silt to the harbor and trade here moved to the growing port of Baltimore.

[Scott] Hartford County every 10 years or so spends anywhere from 2 to $500,000.

Dredging out Foster's branch and a couple of other areas in Joppatown.

Because there's boats downstream, we may not need to spend that as often.

This is really catching all the sediment that's coming in from the entire watershed.

[Chris] What we think of as the Northern Hemisphere, those valleys that are flat, are made by beaver.

Millions of years of beaver activity, ponds filling up with sediment.

Beaver moving, filling up another pond with sediment.

They changed the shape of the planet.

[Narrator] Humans looked at those flat fertile areas and built farms and railroads and towns.

They planted their own trees and bushes and crops.

And when the beavers are allowed back, the early results can be jarring.

[Scott] We've been taught for the last 30 years that if we just plant more trees, folks, everything's gonna be great.

And a beaver comes in and it's like, wow, all the trees died.

But a lot of these trees, these cherries and poplars, you know they're not supposed to be here in these flood plain areas, right?

Historically, what do we have in here?

We had things like willow and alder and maple and those species, you know, can be trimmed out by a beaver and, and they still, you know, will come back.

They will regenerate.

In fact, sometimes they even do better.

[Rob Deford] So this is the first vineyard that we planted on the farm.

[Narrator] Rob Deford is the president of Boordy Vineyards.

Apart from the grapes, Boordy farms more than 100 acres of traditional crops and livestock.

The farm is bisected by Long Green Creek.

[Rob] When there was a big rainstorm, the stream would run through at at a roaring velocity and do a lot of damage to the banks and carry all that silt downstream.

[Narrator] When the farm started a project to spread out the stream and slow its waters, beaver arrived.

[Rob] We didn't know we had a beaver within a hundred miles of here.

[Narrator] At first the beaver were trapped, but Ecotone suggested a pond leveler and convinced the farm to try something new.

A beaver engineered wetland.

[Rob] Since the original construction of the dam, silt has sort of infiltrated that structure and now we have a plant community coming out of the dam.

So it's actually hard to even see it anymore.

So at one point we had a concern that it, a big rain event might breach the dam.

I'm not concerned about that anymore.

This is nature healing itself.

Audubon has cataloged over a hundred species of birds in this wetland and this only 10 acres.

A trout population is now healthy.

For us it's really introducing a wonderful element on the farm that we enjoy, but we also can see the effect on water quality and the stream is rarely muddy anymore.

[water rushing] It's really hard to get a feel for the shape of this anymore because it's so grown up.

[Narrator] Though skeptical at first, Rob has become an unlikely beaver ally.

[Rob] There are probably a lot more chapters to be written in this story, but where we are today is that we have a healthy colony of beavers living behind that original dam.

It's not getting any bigger and it seems that we have reached equilibrium with them, which is great.

[Forest] If we can see into here.

[Narrator] Back in Annapolis, Forest Mays made a bet that he could live with beavers, and turned away the trapper who'd come to remove them.

[Forest] Can you see that pipe down there?

My pond got maybe a foot deeper so the water quality got better.

You know, you have to get a permit to trap in Annapolis.

It's still allowed.

Many cities don't allow trapping and therefore they have to do something else.

So, but I know there's tension sometimes, but there's so many places working on easing that tension now that you know we can actually work with them.

My hope is that people get to enjoy the, the joy of beavers like I have.

They're the most incredible, funny little animals.

♪♪ [Guide] I'm rolling.

[Narrator] June is the busy season at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

[Guide] Start date, today's date.

[Narrator] The stream of thru-hikers, those brave souls attempting the entire 2,200 mile trail, peaks as northbound hikers scramble to reach Maine before winter.

[Guide]: Six - eighteen.

[Narrator] Their photos are added to the Conservancy's archive, proof forever that they made it this far.

[Donovan] It's great when he gets down and walks, for sure.

[Narrator] Annette and Donovan set out from Georgia months ago in search of a great adventure.

[Donovan] He's seen five bears actually, which is more than a lot of people see the whole trail.

[Narrator] Once finished at the conservancy through hikers have a short downhill jaunt, past the armory made famous in John Brown's raid.

Then it's onto this bridge.

Behind them are months of grueling trail days.

Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, across the bridge, Maryland.

They say it's a special moment spiritually, if not technically, it's the halfway point of their journey.

They've settled into a rhythm and they're beginning to believe that they can make it to the end.

[Narrator] Maryland's section of the trail is short, just 41 miles, relatively flat, packed with history, and known for some stunning views.

[Jim Fettig] You can make excellent time in Maryland.

[Narrator] Jim Fettig is the President of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club.

He thru-hiked the trail known as the AT in 2014.

[Jim Fettig] Most of it is on an old logging road and so it's pretty easy walking with a couple of notorious rocky sections.

The other thing makes Maryland unique is it's within two hours of 20 million people.

[Narrator] Large segments of the AT lay quiet before and after thru-hikers appear.

But Maryland's portion is a bustling playground for nature lovers in the spring, summer, and fall.

Six months ago, Christian was home in South Africa.

[Christian] I just decided I can't continue on the track I was and wanted to do something drastically different.

So I, I fell down the the rabbit hole, YouTube (laugh).

[Narrator] Today, he's hiking along the old Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

The first three miles of the Maryland Trail follow this towpath.

Then it's up 567 feet to the southern tip of South Mountain.

Mile four, Weaverton Cliffs.

On a crisp autumn day, hikers pose for selfies and soak in the fall colors along the Potomac River.

[train horn blows] The occasional train whistle cuts the air.

For summer thruhikers, the trail turns north and the realization comes.

South Mountain is more than just a hill.

It's a ridge running all the way from the Potomac River to Pennsylvania.

The dividing line between the Cumberland Valley in the west and the Maryland Piedmont in the east.

[Travis Watts] So the trees are incredibly beautiful at this time of year.

Hardwoods mixed with poplar things like that.

Spiced bush.

Mountain Laurel.

Sassafras.

Dogwood.

[Narrator] Park Ranger Travis Watts is a Manager at the South Mountain Recreation Area.

[Travis Watts] We work with our Appalachian Trail Partners, like PATC and the Mountain Club of Maryland to help to coordinate the maintenance of the trail.

We do interpretive hikes along the trail and respond to emergencies.

[Narrator] The idea of the the AT was born in the early 1920's.

Its evangelist, Benton MacKaye, saw it as a lure to draw people away from America's teeming industrial cities.

His colleagues saw it as a crusade to save a spirit being crushed by the modern world.

♪♪ The spirit of fellowship and cooperation.

Hiking clubs stitched together the Maryland section of the trail in the 1930's with help from the Civilian Conservation Core or CCC.

[Dave House] This one slated for replacement.

[Narrator] Dave House and a team of volunteers continue that work today.

Maintaining campsites, clearing brush and fighting back against the trail's great enemy, erosion.

Dave House: That's what we call a check dam.

It dams up the sediment to fill the trail back in.

We joke, we call it our outdoor gym.

There's no membership fee.

It's free.

And everybody's welcome to join.

[chuckles] [Narrator] The thru-hikers will find camping spots roughly every five miles.

Six primitive shelters or more developed accommodations in the five state parks along the path.

Mile 10, Gathland State Park.

An arch memorializes America's fallen war correspondence.

Weekend campers test the trail.

Thru-hikers, Annie and Nell, wait out the worst of the summer heat.

Halfway to Maine, they've adapted to the grueling life of the trail.

[Annie] Something that I've learned is that I can exist with such minimal things.

Like all I need is a little bit of food, some water, and like a place to sleep.

Even if it's just the ground.

[Nell] Like we've had back to back days of rain and all your stuff is wet and you haven't put on dry shoes in days.

But there's always going to be a sunny day that comes up where you can sit out like today and dry out your stuff.

You're gonna be able to put on dry socks again.

And that's just like a nice feeling knowing that there's gonna be better days coming up.

♪♪ [Narrator] Mile 19, Washington Monument State Park.

The tower was built in the 1820's to honor the first President.

It served as a Union signal tower during the Civil War when great armies moved through and around this valley.

More than 700 Union and Confederate soldiers died fighting along South Mountain three days before those armies clashed at a creek called Antietam.

The bloodiest day of fighting in American history.

Today birders used the tower to spot migrating raptors.

[John Kelly] What we have over here is a red tailed hawk that's been coming down range with two sharp-shinned hawks.

[Narrator] John Kelly says the birds cling to the ridge line to catch updrafts in the atmosphere.

[John] It's into the valley now.

Looks like a red shoulder hawk.

[Narrator] On a typical October day, he might spot a dozen sharp-shinned hawks.

[John] Beautiful bird.

[Narrator] Two dozen red tailed hawks.

A handful of peregrine falcons.

And hopefully... [John] Every once in a while we'll have a golden eagle that will turn down South Mountain and we get, we get the prize that day, we get the trophy.

South Mountain is a critical navigation route for these birds.

It is the Appalachian Trail as well.

So for two leggeds and the wing nations, it works very well.

[Kasey Kohlmeier] This is one of the heaviest trafficked places on the AT.

[Narrator] Kasey Kohlmeier climbs the busiest section of the AT in Maryland, the path to Annapolis Rock.

[Kasey] So this is where the ridge runners stay.

[Narrator] Kasey is what's known as a ridge runner, for nine months she'll live on the trail.

Ridge runners clear obstacles, police campsites, offer first aid, and frequently relocate venomous visitors.

♪♪ [Kasey] Copperheads are fun.

We um, take 'em out of Annapolis Rock only because it's such a populated area.

I'm not scared of them, but that bundle of 'em, I'm like, ah.

[laughs].

We just move them off the rocks and take 'em deeper into the woods so nobody gets bit, they hold onto it.

And biting [laughs] and also so that people don't kill 'em.

You know, they're scared and they'll hurt 'em.

But it's fun.

[laughs] It's exciting.

[Narrator] Kasey did it a thru-hike before signing on as a ridge runner and found something irresistible in the mountains.

[Kasey] I wanted to teach myself like how to be more outgoing.

And so when you come out here and there's all these like-minded people and they're all ages, all backgrounds, all walks of life.

It's easy to talk to them 'cause there's like a common ground.

[McGinley Dad] They're still working on their trail legs.

[Narrator] The McGinley's brought their daughters up to Annapolis Rock for the exercise.

[McGinley Dad] And that's what actually is kind of nice about this trail.

The hardest parts in the beginning.

And then you get to the, the never ending flat spot, and then you stumble upon this wonderful view.

[Narrator] There's a lesson they want the girls to grasp, that the view is always better when you earn it.

♪♪ On a nearby rock, Miguel Hernandez works on his repelling skills, while the AT Climbing Club works on their ascents.

[Climber] You meet so many wonderful people here on the trail.

A lot of my friends also climb, so it is such a treasure.

[birds chirping] [Hiker] Oh, you hang the food.

So the food stays away from bears, but it's probably more like mini bears, like raccoons and stuff like that.

[Narrator] Mile 36 Raven Rock, the last campground in Maryland.

Thru-hikers pitch their tents, hang their bear bags.

[Hiker 2] [laughs], Are you going to get water?

I felt like I needed to get off the hamster wheel.

[Hiker 1] I sold my house and I pretty much donated 90 percent of my stuff.

[Narrator] Just five miles from the Pennsylvania border.

Talk turns to the road ahead.

Rocky passages in Pennsylvania, serious mountains in New Hampshire, the notorious 100 mile wilderness in Maine.

[Hiker 3] Old expression that they use a lot is they don't quit on your toughest day.

[Woman] Mm-hmm [Hiker 3] Somehow mentally you have to keep yourself out here.

[Hiker 1] For me, the biggest challenge is probably my inner critic.

That little voice in my head that says you can't do this.

And just to, um, basically let the sound in my breath be louder than that voice is the key to being successful.

[laughter] [Narrator] They come to the trail for many reasons; an adventure, an escape, a view, a break, a spiritual renewal.

And they always seem to find what they were always meant to find.

[Hiker 5] I came out here mostly wanting to look at nature and be around it.

And I still enjoy that stuff.

And I've also realized that being around other people is really what makes a trail special.

You meet people at the shelters.

There's a lot of people that do trail magic, that come out and they cook for you.

They'll bring you snacks.

[Christian] It's quite new to me to be a part of a hiker community.

Hiking community in South Africa is basically you and a couple of friends that go on trail and you, you keep to yourself when I came here and everybody's just so kind and open and generous.

That's, ah it's amazing.

[Hiker 2] I think us just getting out here and meeting the people that we have and having the experiences that we're having, we're gonna remember for the rest of our lives.

♪♪ [crickets chirping] [fire crackling] [Narrator] To stream episodes of Outdoors Maryland, visit mpt.org.

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[owl hoots] Learn more about Maryland's diverse natural resources at... or download the official mobile app.