Fri-YAY Featured Inclusive Playground! Pinecliff Park

Pinecliff Park

Did you know that Frederick County Parks and Rec has a Boundless Playground!? They actually have two! Ballenger Creek and Pinecliff Parks are both barrier free! The idea is simple and what we’ve been discussing! Make a play space that is accessible for all abilities! Many Frederick area kids have probably been to one or both of these parks numerous times without ever thinking about the differences! Taking a closer look, modifications have been made accessible by having hard ground cover, many ramps for kids of all abilities to be able to get to the highest play level, and swings and bounce equipment with higher backs. It is so exciting that Frederick already has adapted accessibility into some of their playgrounds!

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Pinecliff was one of our favorite parks when my kids were younger. The playground area is accessible covering, so my kids didn’t eat the mulch or rubber tire pieces like at most playgrounds…Is that just my kids? It was large for their ages, so there was a lot of freedom to run up the ramps and down the ramps and up the ramps…yeah, you get the picture. There is also a lot of green space at Pinecliff, so if they did leave the tot lot, then there was plenty of room to run away! We had so many picnics at this park! Right by the playground is a covered pavilion, but there is so much nice shade that we usually camped out on a blanket with the littles and they would come and go and just snack all day! There isn’t much guided imaginative play here, but the kids always came up with games of being on a ship, or some theme of the day.

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Pinecliff Park also has another playground for older kids (we don’t follow those recommendations), but it is not accessible. Another fun feature of the park is that it was built along the Scenic Monocacy River. In the summer there are spots with small creeks or the river to play in if it is shallow enough! Other features of Pinecliff are the sled run and ice skating pond in the winter, baseball and sport fields, horseshoes, a boat ramp, and the Browning Building which is available for event rentals.

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Pinecliff Park is located at 8350 Pinecliff Park Road Frederick, MD 21704 You can find event rentals, maps, and more at the web page here! As always, if you would like to learn more about accessible and inclusive playgrounds in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area check out Sophie and Madigan’s Playground! It’s more than a park and find out how the playground that they are building will be accessible AND inclusive and the first of its kind in our area!