Tag Archives: C&O Canal trail

Saying farewell to the C&O

Posted on April 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

In Cumberland, MD, Angela and I said farewell to the C&O Canal Trail. So are we done with our journey? Oh, my no. We’re over a week in, and we’ve only reached the halfway point.

Next up, the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) Trail out of downtown Cumberland, pedaling northwest to Frostburg. Eight miles by car, a steady sixteen miles uphill by bicycle.

Oh, you’re thinking, that’s bad.

No, that’s good. The journey is twice as long to keep the grade of incline at one percent. A slog, but doable. Feel the burn.

And soak up the scenery. Along the way we passed by the Cumberland Bone Cave where skeletal remains were found dating back 200,000 years, to the Pleistocene Era.

On one stretch we spotted four or five quite enormous wild turkeys (they’re fast, so they got away before we could take photos) who left large three-toed tracks in the cinders reminiscent of dinosaur footprints (or maybe the bone cave had captured our imaginations?)

Every so often along the way, we happen upon an interpretive sign that peels back a layer of history. A sign positioned before the valley view of Mt. Savage informed us:

The Community of Mt. Savage … was originally referred to as “Arnold’s Settlement” in about 1780. The Arnold family had established themselves here … along an old American Indian trail west. … The settlement served as an overnight stop for travelers moving westward to the Ohio River.

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At Cumberland, the Queen City

Posted on April 15, 2018 | 2 comments

Back in the 1800s, Cumberland was second only to Baltimore as the wealthiest, most vibrant city in Maryland, so it became known as the Queen City. Its wealth and industry came mainly from the Cumberland Narrows. See the gap there, on the left in the picture below? That’s it, the Cumberland Narrows, the best way through the Alleghenies. A way through not only for travelers and settlers, but also a commercial route to bring wheat and other produce from west of the mountains to East Coast markets.

It wasn’t always called the Queen City. Back in 1755, upon arriving at Fort Cumberland, Charlotte Bristow Browne, a nurse there to tend to British soldiers at the fort, called it “the most desolate place I ever saw.”

Just one of Cumberland’s many incarnations. Angela and I have arrived here in a celebratory mood, since today in part the city is known for being the nexus of the C&O Canal Trail and the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) Trail. We’ve hit the halfway point. Only 175 miles to go to reach Pittsburgh.

During the past two days, we entered one of the most remote, off grid, portions of the trail.

“There’s just not a lot out there,” A Canal Steward informed us.

No place to stay but the tent. No place to eat but at the camp stove. After snow earlier in the week, we’ve suddenly landed in sunny, 80+ degree days. Even the bugs are caught by surprise, and haven’t yet hatched to become a nuisance. (This stretch of trail is typically the buggiest of the whole 354 mile journey.)

Our biggest dilemma in setting up the tent has been how not to damage the Spring Beauty, Bluebell, and Bloodroot wildflowers in the process.

Oh, yes, and there’s something else out here that soaks up the sun. So far two of these slitherers have materialized in the grass as I zipped past. An energy boost to be sure, helping me pedal that much faster.

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Off the trail

Posted on April 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

I knew all along that on the first leg of the journey, by following the C&O Canal Trail, Angela and I wouldn’t be on the official overland road out of Baltimore of the early 1800s.

Researching from home, I hit on the “National Road Museum” about 8 miles distant from the Potomac at Shepherdstown, WV that would enlighten me more about what led to the Road’s construction (which began in 1811). But the website here was misleading. Actually, this building is the future home of the National Road Museum, which won’t open until the fall of 2018.

No worries, we didn’t bike all that way. We’d spent the night at the luxurious Bavarian Inn, and Angela talked with an employee there who convinced management to let him load our bikes into a hotel van and shuttle us to Boonsboro, Maryland. After exploring the historic town (not the Kentucky Boonesboro — this one was settled around 1776 by William Boone, a relation of Daniel Boone), we bicycled on Rte 68 for Williamsport, to reach the C&O Canal Trail once more.

Going off trail was picturesque, difficult, and dangerous. Such gorgeous country in this southwest corner of Maryland, gently rolling hills and farms, the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains bordering the edges all around. We descended into the Antietam Creek valley, stopping at a park by the river long enough to witness an expert fly fisherman nab a glistening brook trout.

The Antietam Civil War battlefield gets its name from this meandering creek. In researching 18th century history, I discovered another terrible battle also occurred at Mount Antietam in 1736, a fatal skirmish between Catawba and Delaware hunting bands. On a sunny afternoon on the creek banks, it seemed impossible that either of those terrible events ever happened.

Meanwhile, what goes down must go up. Wending by bicycle out of the creek valley, Route 68 rose, dipped, rose and dipped, for twelve miles. It was also a narrow road, with no shoulder, making me very glad we were bicycling in broad daylight, and that more of the level C&O Trail lay in our future.

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At least we ate ice cream

Posted on April 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

The C&O Lockhouses are unique historic features of the C&O Canal Trail. Their name doesn’t do them justice. The word lockhouse reminds me of a former prison or mental institution. Maybe that’s why on the website they’re called Canal Quarters. Whatever. The buildings appear whenever we encounter canal locks. Some are restored and available to reserve. Truly idyllic.

Angela and I didn’t stay in any. Angela looked into it, but they were all reserved well in advance.

A highlight of the day was a stop at Rocky Point Creamery. Yum. Plus, we earned the calories via sweat equity, having pedaled over a mile off the trail to find it.

Now, we’ve made it just 5 miles south of Harpers Ferry, to Brunswick, staying at the only accommodation we could sleuth out: Travelodge.

See those white flecks on the sign? That’s not pigeon poop. That’s snow. Brr. So we’re sleeping inside.

Looking forward to reaching Harpers Ferry, West Virginia midday Monday. I’ve been told the view from Maryland of the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, the town of Harpers Ferry nestled at the point, is worth the climb.

We’ll see. The climb to this Travelodge, pushing our bikes up steep hills after dark, was exhausting. Then again, it’s to be expected. If you’re biking along a river valley, any place away from the river is bound to be uphill. The snow, on the other hand, that’s not to be expected. But, if I have to choose between bicycling in snow or rain, I think I’ll pick the former.

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And … we’re off!

Posted on April 8, 2018 | Leave a comment

Today was the first day of our long-awaited, much ballyhooed bicycle ride from DC to Pittsburgh. Wow. For starters, as Angela and I wrestled our gear into compact, waterproof panniers, IT WAS SNOWING. Not big flakes, not a lot of them, but every so often a grain-sized, frozen white form of precipitation drifted into my field of vision. I tried not to think about it.

After all I’d been through to get here, there was no way I was turning back. The bike rental people had dropped off the bikes on time, at 10:30, at the Carderock Recreation Area Pavilion. Next, according to plan, I’d returned the rental car at the airport and caught a taxi back to the pavilion.

At first, understandably, the taxi driver had trouble with my request to go to Carderock. Normally, people ask to go to residences, or buildings. I wanted to go to a park.

“But what is address?”

“Carderock Recreation Area. I don’t think it has an address.”

We worked it out. When I typed in Carderock in his GPS, the Recreation Area materialized. I didn’t ask the driver his country of origin, but if I were to guess, I’d say he came from the Middle Eastern region, of Arab derivation. (There’s a reason I’m going into this.) Following GPS, we scuttled along on George Washington Memorial Parkway, then crossed the river and got off at Clara Barton Parkway. At the exit ramp for Carderock, the driver accidentally went right instead of left. Immediately before us loomed something very military-looking, a facility protected by a guard house and a high security gate.

The taxi driver threw it into reverse.

“I think you can just make a U-turn up there,” I said, nervously checking behind us on the one-way ramp.

“Oh no, I not doing that. My friend, he stopped at a gate like that, he questioned for an hour, they almost didn’t let him free.”

I looked it up just now, we’d almost blundered into the US Naval Surface Warfare Center. Sheesh. That would have sucked.

Anyhow, with all the logistics, Angela and I didn’t start pedaling until 3 p.m., and slogged away in Maryland along a gorgeous, overflowing Potomac for the next five hours and 20+ miles. Along the way, we spotted enormous Great Blue Herons and many deer, a muskrat, a fox, and evidence of beaver (a half-gnawed tree).

But we’re in a hotel in Leesburg, VA tonight. It was just too darn cold, and besides, I can’t feel my legs. The striking part about that was, no bridge existed to cross the Potomac. We took a ferry, at aptly named Whites Ferry. But here’s the best part: no more biking tonight. Our obliging Comfort Suites hotel sent a shuttle to pick us up. Aaah.

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