I’d set an alarm for 6:20 before going to bed, and packed up everything that I wasn’t going to immediately need in the morning in an attempt to break camp in record time. The reason for my haste was that I had a 6:30pm train, and a plan to meet a good friend who I hadn’t seen in a couple years. Each moment I could accelerate my packing meant more time to hang out with my buddy.

I woke up in the dark, and in a fortuitous bit of timing, took care of my morning “business” a mere 5 minutes before the “poop truck” rolled in to clean the port-a-john, the only motorized vehicle I’d seen on the trail during my trip. I skipped my coffee routine, and was packed up and on the trail in record time just as the sun was beginning to burn off the morning fog.

I rode in the cool and quiet fog, gradually encountering more and more people as I neared civilization.

Outside dog man on my first day, I’d had nothing but universally positive interactions with my fellow humans to this point on my adventure, and had made it a “policy” of my trip to say “hello” to everyone I passed and offer a smile and a bell ring if I could get my finger to the dinger in time. I approached a man and three small boys walking towards me, the man carrying what appeared to be an axe and the three boys with what looked like pieces of bark or kindling.

Assuming another forgettable interaction, I gave my ding and hearty “hello,” and rather than stepping to the side, the boys arranged themselves across the trail in a semi circle. I assumed they were interested in the bike and slowed down a bit, when the oldest, appearing to be around 7, said “I’ve seen you before… can I push you into the lake?”

I assumed this was some kind of joke, but he said it in a rather strange manner. I responded “I’d prefer that you did not, and I hope you have a great day!” as I swerved between the boys and accelerated as he hopped a couple steps after me and shouted “NEXT TIME I’M GONNA PUSH YOU INTO THE LAKE! I AM A HEBREW! YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!”

I indeed have no idea what he meant, or what the deal with that crew was, but I didn’t stay long to find out, or debate their thoughts on the people of Israel. I don’t claim to be an authority on any religion, but unless I slept through part of my religion classes during catholic school I don’t recall any old testament passages that covered pushing cyclists into lakes.

With my strange trail compatriots behind me, I cycled through Great Falls, gawking at the aptly named and sufficiently great falls.

I also passed another canal barge that was closed to visitors, so I was unsure if it was a replica like the barge I’d passed what seemed like months ago in Cumberland, or it had actually plied the canal at some point before it shut down in the 1920’s.

Interestingly, as I approached DC the conditions of the trail seemed to deteriorate, as did the condition of the canal locks. I imagined that this was intentional, to try and keep the “secret” of the 330 miles of wonder that lay in their backyard out of the purview of the average DC resident.

The miles ticked by quickly. I’d started the day only 30 miles outside DC, but mileage has a funny way of slipping by sometimes, while at other times what seemed like an endless effort results in barely a mile travelled. Before I knew it, I was into single digits, and found myself at the 9 mile marker.

The final miles of the trail are interesting. I could hear automotive traffic as the trail ran next to a major road, yet the trees shielded the cars from view, save for an occasional glimpse. There was more pedestrian and bicycle traffic, but the trail still seemed to be fairly remote, to the point that I was wondering if the trail ended before hitting Georgetown proper, which occurred just as the spires of the city came into view.

There trail meanders into Georgetown, passing some of the famous row houses which open right onto the canal. With mere tenths of a mile left, I thought I was blocked from reaching the official start/end of the trail by construction, but ultimately found my way around and found the sign denoting then end of the line.

I grabbed a selfie and noticed two young ladies roaming around with loaded bikes. They looked too clean to be finishing their ride, so I assumed perhaps they were commuters, but when they grew excited to find the C&O sign I struck up a conversation and discovered they were heading north to Pittsburgh. I shared my excitement of finishing an incredibly journey, and shared that I was just a little bit jealous they were embarking on their own adventure.

After taking their picture and reflecting for a moment, I got in touch with my friend who generously shared his shower before we went out for some food and drink. As generally happens when I spend time with this gentleman, I lost all track of time, and in what seemed like a flash glanced at my watch to see it was 5:05PM and I had a 6:30PM train to catch.

We paid our tab, hustled back to his apartment, and I quickly threw my bags on my bike and made record time on the 3’ish miles to Union Station. My planned leisurely ride through our nation’s capital, stopping for photos along the way turned into a sprint between traffic lights, with only an occasional glace at a monument while interpreting directions from my GPS and avoiding cars.

I arrived about 15 minutes before my train, and there was some minor confusion on what to do with my bike, but all the Amtrak personnel were wonderfully friendly and helpful, and ultimately the conductor hoisted my steed onto the baggage car, I found my seat, and binge watched some garbage TV on my iPad for the multi-hour trip homeward.

My wife had kindly positioned my car at the train station, with my bike rack hidden in the trunk. The train arrived about 30 minutes early, and my bike survived the entire journey unscathed save for a broken water bottle cage, and some scuffed grip tape where someone had knocked my bike over in Cumberland.

I couldn’t have asked for a better adventure, and it was salve for my soul during this time of COVID, political antics, and other general strangeness. There’s something healing about the certaintly of a bicycle adventure, where everything is within your control as long as you can keep the pedals turning. There are certainly challenges along the way, but they’re generally within one’s own ability to solve, versus living in a perpetual state of stasis until an unknown entity resolves unseen complexities in the hopes the world returns to some sense of normalcy.

I’ve captured some post-trip thoughts, but I’m definitely taking my family on some combination of the GAP and/or C&O, and wouldn’t change a thing (except perhaps brining some warmer clothing) on this adventure. If you’ve come this far, if nothing else, I hope you’ll consider your own adventure, whether around the block, or around the world.

I awoke in the night with a funny feeling, and could hear a strange rushing sound. At first I thought it was the wind, but then I realized it was a front moving quickly and brining some hard rain along with it. So much for the zero-percent chance of rain in my usually-reliable DarkSky weather app!

I jumped out of the tent to cover my leather Brooks saddle, and fiddled for a moment with the rain fly, zipping myself into my nylon fortress just as the rains hit. I listened to the pleasant sound of rain hitting the tent for a few moments and then was back to sleep.

Day five was my first of two shorter days. I could have ridden straight into DC from my camp location as I was only about 80 miles out of DC, but Amtrak had reduced their long-haul train schedule to three days per week, so it was Tuesday or nothing. An extra day on the trail wasn’t much of a hardship, and also allowed me to spend some time in Harper’s Ferry, which I’d last visited just over 20 years prior on a previous adventure we’ll get to in due course.

The morning was foggy and cool, and being in no particular rush I enjoyed my coffee while watching the fog roll off the Chesapeake River, and allowing the sun some extra time to bake off the residual moisture in the air and on my gear. The trail was in great shape in this section, having a GAP-like quality, and I enjoyed my ride while feeling that nagging sensation that the adventure was coming to a close. 

In addition to the locks and lock houses, I’d also pass the occasional industrial-era remnant, although in this case many were older than the railroad-era articles on the GAP. It continued to amaze me that humans could build a 185-mile canal in the 1800’s, and then ply that route for more than 100 years with little more technology than grit, man, and mule-power.

I eventually arrived at the bridge to Harper’s Ferry, which required a climb up a set of stairs. Apparently this was a “pro-mask” town, as people outdoors all had their masks on, a different vibe than most of the previous towns. It took one trip for my bags, and one trip for my bicycle, but I got everything up the stairs just as a train rumbled across the bridge.

I instantly remembered the remnants of several other bridges that crossed the river from my last trip here, as I walked across this same bridge on the start of a planned hike on the northern half of the Appalachian Trail, my “big adventure” after having finished college.

Those bridge supports had bid me adieu as a younger man, in a very different place in life. I was grossly overweight at the time, pushing over 260 lbs. In fact, I remember avoiding weighing myself in the weeks leading up to my hike for fear of what the scale would relay. Somewhere in the trip to Harper’s Ferry, my pack had broke, so I arrived at the train station in town with an unloaded pack, and a beat up cardboard box with all my belongings. I must have been quite a sight, as someone I passed stopped to chat and mentioned something to the effect that the trail was a bit “challenging” for someone in my state, a warning he must have thought appropriate as I likely looked like I wasn’t up to much of a challenge beyond killing a pizza and a six pack.

I was also in a confused place in life, having wrapped up a lifetime of school, and not knowing what was ahead as I entered the working world.

During my hike, in addition to the bad blistering that accompanies asking tender feet that probably did less than 2000 steps per day on average to undertake a loaded hike, I also ended up experiencing increasing pain in my foot. On finally visiting a doctor, they found I’d broken a bone in my foot and recommended abandoning my hike after a couple hundred miles.

I took a rather depressing train ride home, and confirmed the diagnosis with a hometown doctor, who was very kind, but in so many words told me that I was too heavy and unfit to expect my body to go from zero to hiking hero, and this was the price I paid for the attempt.

There’s ultimately a happy ending to this story. After licking my wounds I was able to start my job a few months early. Through a variety of strange circumstances this led me to several lifelong friendships, (one of whom I was meeting in DC), and though an even more convoluted series of twists and turns, allowed me to meet my future wife.

Where a confused and soon-to-be-broken young man once stood was now occupied by a much healthier person, mentally and physically: approximately 60lbs lighter, finisher of a couple dozen half-marathons and various triathlons, and a father to three wonderful children.

In what was becoming a bit of a routine, I had lunch outside on a fantastic roof deck, got my daily brew, and ran into some cyclists who were fresh out of DC and heading north to Pittsburgh. I contemplated where I was and where I’d been, and the feeling of excitement that I was near my goal, and a tinge of lament that an adventure was coming to an end.

I bid my goodbyes to Harper’s Ferry, and carried my bike and gear down the stairs and back to the trail, which I’d trod during my hiking trip as the C&O and AT shared the same trail for a few miles before the white blazes of the AT split off and headed for Maine.

Conditions continued to be good on the trail, although many of the pump handles at the next set of campgrounds were missing. I’d heard rumors of this, and stopped to double-check the NPS website and make sure my planned stop for the evening, Chisel Branch, was water-enabled.

I arrived a couple hours before sunset, joining another person at camp who was walking the C&O from Cumberland. The campsite was large, and had a couple nice areas near the river. However those areas had large trees above them, and I’d heard (and seen) big branches falling off while at other campsites and while riding. I remembered the scouts admonishing campers to beware “widow makers,” branches that fall on tents while occupants are sleeping, triggering their untimely demise. Being close to the end of my journey, avoiding death seemed like a reasonable objective, so I cooked and ate in the nice little clearing by the river, while setting up my tent in the large and tree-free field.

I enjoyed my final round of “potato mush,” and chatted with my family due to the delights of full phone reception versus the tenuous single bar, or complete lack of service I had at most other campsites along the C&O. I also took full advantage of the chance to rig a clothesline and dry my gear, and caught just enough sun to fully dry my tent and mostly dry my clothing before breaking down as much of my gear as possible in preparation for an early morning start.

Day Four, my last “full” day of riding around 60 miles, started much as things had since Pittsburgh, with a cold morning and quick preparations in the hopes of getting some activity started to warm my bones. I did invoke my trailside coffee setup once again, boiling water and using the French press, finally getting my grounds ratio just about right for the bracing black coffee I prefer.

I began my ride in the nanopuff as had become the norm, as well as my arm and leg warmers and winter cycling gloves. My brain also appeared to be a bit frozen, since I spent a good dozen miles on the Western Maryland Rail Trail rather accidentally. This is apparently a common detour for C&O travelers looking to escape the rough towpath, but with recent improvements I really didn’t feel a compelling need for pavement. At one of the frequent road junctions, I saw a sign for “Rail Trail,” and my brain still being on the GAP apparently, assumed that was the proper direction and I switched over to the WMR. Once I realized my mistake I assumed I could switch back after a few miles, but ultimately rolled into Hancock, MD before finding a merge point.

There was a well-equipped bicycle shop where I grabbed a battery for my cadence sensor which was acting a little wonky, and they suggested Buddylou’s for lunch. Google indicated it was right up the road, although also suggested it was a combination restaurant and antique store, which seemed odd.

I need not have worried. They clearly catered to cyclists, had tons of outdoor seating, and hit me with a crab soup that was life changing, followed by a burger that nearly brought a tear to my eye.

I saw the two ladies I’d shared camp with, as well as my “friends” that I’d seen on and off since Pittsburgh. Hancock seems to be the last true “trail town” that’s right on the trail, aside perhaps from Harper’s Ferry, which requires and bit of a “hike a bike” up a set of stairs. This generally made the trail feel fairly remote, as the primarily “civilization” I passed was more rolling farmland and the occasional farmhouse or abandoned building.

As usual, the locks and lock houses remained a constant companion, this particular example looking rather stately and functional.

While this one seems to have past its best days.

I ultimately came upon a series of dams that turned the Chesapeake into more of a lake, which brought some pleasure craft and pontoon boats zooming along, as well as vacation homes lining the shore. There were also locks and gateways to the river so barge traffic could transit between the canal and river, and apparently there were also several steam-driven pumps that would fill the canal with water.

Around this area the trail turned rather amusing, becoming a bit of a “roller coaster” compared to the straight shot through the woods. Aside from worrying about pedestrians, it was rather fun to scoot around bends and over little rollers.

At a parking area I passed a young mother with her two children carrying Razor-type scooters, and smugly assumed they were in for a surprise trying to navigate their scooters on the dirt path. Little did I know, they were clearly the experts as the trail became a paved boardwalk of sorts that skirted one of the lake-like areas for several miles, providing open skies and sun.

Being Sunday, things began to quiet down around 4PM, and I had the trail largely to myself and enjoyed the solitude. That continued to my camp for the evening at Horseshoe Bend, which ended up being a lovely spot with a secluded area that had a nice view of the river, and my own little sitting area of some upturned logs around the fire pit, and ultimately I was the sole occupant of the camp.

As there were no easily accessible trail towns, at least to my knowledge, it was the first night I dined in camp, finally consuming what I dubbed “potato mush” after having carried the makings since Pittsburgh. Despite my unappetizing name, it was actually quite good and much better (and cheaper) than the usual dehydrated meal. Potato Mush consists of one bag Idahoian “Loaded Baked” mashed potato powder, some shelf-stable bacon bits, and some French fried onions for some added crunch. Some recommend freeze dried chives or similar but I didn’t have any on hand. This was a good “carb bomb,” along with some fat and protein, took all of 10 minutes to cook end to end, while providing a result that was rather tasty to someone burning 2-4000 calories each day. 

This was also the first time I’d used my newly acquired pot scraper (complete gear list here) which lived up to the hype of allowing easy cleaning (scrape, lick, repeat) and got my pot 98% clean. This meal would have made a mess of my sponge, so the scraper was key. I still hit the pot with some soap and hot water for sanitary reasons, as I watched the sun set.

My phone reported no chance of rain, so I rolled the rain fly half up, allowing a view of the river as the the last lingering sun set and I soon drifted off to sleep.

What had seemed like an early chill to the air the night before had turned downright brisk in the evening. A combination of fall weather and altitude (Meyersdale sits at about 2000′ versus Pittsburgh’s 700) had pulled temperatures below freezing during the night. Your faithful correspondent being full of hot (and moist) air, the inside of my tent had several thin sheets of ice in the morning, and it was one of those mornings where I’d don an item of clothing, retreat back into my sleeping bag to warm up, and then repeat the cycle for the next article of clothing, until fully dressed and somewhat warm.

Even with nearly every article of clothing on, I was still shivering and wondering how I’d get packed up and moving on the bicycle, relishing the thought of riding up the short, steep hill out of town to get the blood flowing and delivering warmth to my limbs.

At that point, I remembered the wonderful bath house, and at the moment I wouldn’t have traded the splendor of the (presumably unheated) Taj Mahal for the comparative squalor of the bath house due to the miraculous gas heater therein. I shivered my way over, and found the bath house a good 10 degrees warmer. I set the heated to “turbo,” and enjoyed the morning’s “business” while I warmed up.

With the shivering stopped, I donned my cycling clothes, and skipped the formalities of making coffee myself, walking down to a nearby gas station for a cup of anything warm and caffeinated. I packed up camp quickly and started cycling, the brief climb having the desired effect of elevating my heart rate and generating some heat as I returned to the trail.

I was quite excited about the third day on the trail. It was the day I’d cross the eastern continental divide, roll downhill and enter the first major tunnel of the trip, cross the Mason Dixon Line, and then make the transition from the GAP to the C&O. The map below, a rather famous photo stop inside the tunnel at the divide, shows the profile of the trail from Pittsburgh on the right, to DC on the left, and while the scale exaggerates the drama of the decline from the divide, it does show the comparatively slow climb from north to south, followed by the steep descent down to Cumberland and then slow roll downhill to DC.

The emerging sun and warmth of a steady, light effort caused me to repack my nanopuff jacket, establishing a happy balance between body heat and external cold. I’d seen pictures of the Great Divide from other travel journals, and what must look like a mundane or even unnoticeable bit of “road furniture” from the roadway above was an elaborately illustrated tunnel that marked the end of my climbing and a point of celebration for riders coming from either direction.

The sun was coming up in the east, and backlit the divide tunnel as I approached. The “climbing” of the previous days had certainly been unremarkable, but it was noticeable in that it seemed like an omnipresent force that extracted just a tiny bit of forward speed. With sun shining and blue skies, I celebrated my journey thus far, and life in general.

The road immediately turns gently downhill after the divide, and it seemed like I’d shifted into warp drive, the same amount of effort producing a noticeable increase in speed. Still basking in the glory of my first significant landmark of the day, I came upon the next: The Big Savage Tunnel.

It’s fashionable in some circles to decry any human attempt to modify the environment. Complex feats of engineering that were once lauded are cited as monuments to climate change and detrimental human impact on the earth. Yet, when faced with a tunnel bored straight into the heart of a mountain I could not help but be impressed by the vision, skill, and determination that it must have taken men with vastly more limited tools and technology to create this 3000′ tunnel through the mountain.

I couldn’t help myself to making train whistling noises, unconcerned with who might be within earshot. I chugg-a-chugged and choo-chooed my way through the tunnel, filled with marvel at this monument to industry, eventually bursting forth on the other side to blue skies and a view across the valley.

I admired the view, soaked up the sun, took a nature break, and made some adjustments to my bike. Looking back I noticed I’d passed under the windmills I’d seen in the distance before Meyersdale. It was an interesting juxtaposition of the old and new: a tunnel scratched through the earth and spindly, elegant windmills lazily turning in the sky. One a sleeping dragon and the other adding a somewhat strange and incongruous bit of flare to the otherwise natural ridgeline.

For the first time in the trip, I consistently flirted with, and flaunted the 15mph speed limit on the trail, passing an increasing number of people who were enjoying a sunny Saturday on the trail. Runners and cyclists of all stripes were making their way up to the tunnel and the divide as I sailed down, eventually rolling across the Mason Dixon Line.

I wondered briefly what Messrs. Mason and Dixon, apparently two rather prominent surveyors in their day, would think of their names being associated with a boundary that’s associated with so much strife in this country. There must be hundreds if not thousands of long-forgotten “lines” named after the people that laid them on a map, but few that had this impact on history.

As the grade flattened, the trail became paved, running parallel to an active railroad grade, and ultimately rolling into the town of Cumberland, MD., where the GAP and C&O meet. Looking for lunch, I was slightly confused as a few fellow travelers standing on the sidewalk started cheering me on, until I realized I’d nearly rolled over the “official” mile 0 marker unawares. My newfound cheerleading squad was kind enough to take a photo.

One could again fell the pull of history, as the C&O Towpath is the path that serviced the C&O Canal, which for nearly 100 years transported goods by barge up and down a man-made canal. The aptly named towpath runs parallel to the canal, and allowed mules that were lashed to the canal barges to pull the barges up and down the canal. It seemed appropriate to pose with the ghosts of my fellow towpath travellers.

I had lunch at the Crabby Pig, apparently a GAP/C&O institution, and the crab soup provided a much-needed warming elixir, and sustenance for the start of the next segment of the adventure on the C&O Towpath.

A replica canal barge greeted travelers as they started (or ended) their journey on the 185 mile towpath, and I tried to imagine what it might be like walking alongside my mule team, contemplating a 185-mile walk down to DC with a barge in tow, in what was certainly far more wild country, as I looked back on Cumberland and bid my goodbyes to the GAP on a beautiful fall day.

The towpath generally serves as a buffer between the Chesapeake river and the canal itself, which is in various states of disrepair, ranging from barely-recognizable ditch, to water-filled pond, to restored and still-functional canal at a few park service stops along the way. I’d wondered when researching the trip why the trouble was taken to build a canal when the river was so obviously nearby, and the answers were simple: rivers only flowed in one direction, a challenge without powerful engines, and various rapids and waterfalls blocked the journey.

As I left Cumberland, I got my first glimpses of what would be a fairly typical section of canal that was still holding water. Interestingly, an active railroad runs next to the canal, or across the Chesapeake, for most of its length. According to various stories I’d heard or read, construction on the canal and the railroad north from DC were started at about the same time, on the very same day according to one telling. It became a bit of a race to see which could get north the fastest, and Pittsburgh was the ultimate prize, which the railroad achieved first essentially obsoleting the canal and forcing its closure in the 1920s.

A key feature of the canal is the 70-odd manually operated locks, that raised and lowered barges about 600′ over the journey from Cumberland to DC. These locks are in various states, and I’m told some have been restored to full functionality, while others are gradually being overrun by nature.

The other noteworthy feature is the lock keeper’s houses at most of the locks, which again are in various states from ruins to largely restored. Apparently a “benefit” of working a lock in the employ of the C&O company was being provisioned with a house, and an acre of land for a garden. Supposedly the company looked for “family men” who would have some company and extra hands to man the lock, as the keeper was expected to be available at all hours, on any day, to respond to the call of a coming barge.

Park Service intrepretive signs did indicate that this was a “men only” job, save for one woman who somehow proved herself badass enough to run a lock, which must have been an interesting test.

The trail was not as glassy smooth as the GAP, but was certainly not what I’d heard described as “single track,” which in my mind means a mountain biking trail replete with roots and rocks that’s more suitable for hiking than cycling. The path did indeed become a “single track” or pair of tracks, and was a bit more bumpy than the GAP, but nothing a standard road or hybrid bicycle couldn’t handle.

The final big bit of excitement on the day was the Paw Paw tunnel, in Paw Paw, WV. This was another 3000′ shaft bored through the earth that was started in 1836, and opened behind schedule in 1850.

There were a number of visitors in the tunnel, and I could just barely make out the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel” before I started walking through, so I assumed I could make my way through without any extra light. This wasn’t my best idea, although it was much smarter than my brief flirtation with riding through the tunnel, as the path was very rough, and once into the tunnel I could not see my footing at all. I ultimately grabbed my iPhone and activated the flashlight, feeling a bit stupid knowing I had a much more powerful headlamp buried somewhere in a pannier that I’d neglected to take out before entering the tunnel, but I ultimately made it out, marveling at the brick and stonework that held up the tunnel.

I successfully made it to the other side, once again admiring the engineering that created this structure almost 200 years ago.

With that, I continued along the towpath to the Indago Neck campground, where two other travelers had already pitched their tents and were having dinner. It had been a long day mileage-wise, but with my effort supplemented by the downhill grade I still felt fairly good.

The C&O has “hiker/biker” campsites every 4 to 15 miles or so, and each is generally equipped with a port-a-john, a fire ring or two, a picnic table, and a water pump. In some cases, one of these amenities might be missing, and most frequently the handle for the water pumps are missing. Some sites have amazing views of the river, while others are fairly uninteresting and small.

There was a method to my choice of Indago Neck. First off, it was next to the ruins of a lock house, which I thought would be interesting, and secondly, it looked to be a shade under 2 miles away from “Bill’s Bar,” a small bar in the town of Little Orleans.

I quickly setup camp, my tent still wet from the prior night’s freeze, and flew upriver on my unladen bike to Bill’s, which seemed to have every Light beer ever created on the menu, as well as incredibly reasonably priced, if somewhat lackluster food.

I downed a couple Blue Moons (the seemingly “premium” beer option), some OK crab cakes, and returned to camp as the sun set and I snuggled into a dry and cozy tent.

I awoke to the sound of raindrops erratically hitting my tent and took inventory. Everything seemed dry, I felt reasonably well-rested, and it was a bit after 7am. After my mental “systems check” I determined that the “rain” I was hearing was residual water dripping from the trees, what my friends and I as teenagers dubbed “tree drool,” and it was as good as a time as any to emerge from my nylon and down cocoon.

I began my morning routine, making coffee, packing up camp, and getting dressed, my camp gradually “exploding” as gear was unpacked and repacked, and then contracting back into my panniers.

This being my first morning, my camp mechanics were still a bit rusty, and the color coding of my stuff sacks that seemed so meaningful back at home was largely lost, although I am still quite proud of my “Blue bag for rain gear” (blue like water, get it? Yeah, I thought so) approach.

I took the all-important morning poop in the camp toilets, which were marvelously clean, relatively new flush toilets, packed my sopping wet tent, and walked my bike out of the campsite area and back to the “hike a bike” trail. Feeling cavalier I hopped aboard and rode down the trail, in what would be the most liberal application of braking of the entire trip, my discs squealing in protest as they attempted to slow the mass of human, bicycle, and gear that gravity wanted to send careening down the hill.

All were present and accounted for at the bottom of the hill, and I turned south and continued on my journey on an overcast, cool morning, once again in the quiet and seemingly-remote woods of the Ohiopyle State Park.

The trees here were clearly young, and I wondered if the area had been logged, and what it looked like when the railroad regularly roared along these tracks. Was it still wild and ruggedly beautiful, or was the land stripped of anything that could be harvested and sold, creating a thick and decimated vein of commerce through coal country? I would imagine it was more the latter, as I’d occasionally glimpse remnants of the industrial past through the trees, ranging from piles of what looked like coal to my uneducated eyes, to hulking cement structures that were gradually being overtaken by the forest.

I also came upon old telegraph poles, many with wire still hanging from their sagging structures. As someone who travels (pre-COVID anyway) frequently for work, it’s a trivial matter to book flights and logistics for a cross-country trip at a moment’s notice. I often wonder about times past. What would the travel booking process look like? For me, trips are confirmed with a text message or two and then 10 minutes on a website. When these poles stood proudly would one send a telegraph or letter to plan their trip, receiving a response in several days? How would one mentally and physically prepare for a multi-day journey aboard a train? Did the effort required make these trips more valuable and engaging, or simply more of a hassle?

While my legs felt decent, the cold, grey weather was wearing on me a bit, and as I considered my options over a delicious pizza lunch at the Little Dog Café in the town of  Confluence, it seemed spending the night in Meyersdale and returning to my original plan made the most sense, despite a somewhat poor showing of only 40 miles.

Back on the trail, I later came across a gentleman I recognized from lunch and we rode together for a while, swapping stories and sharing a few laughs while pacing each other up the slow incline to Meyersdale. I could feel the cold and damp sapping my energy, when a few miles from town the sun began to emerge and we crossed the Salisbury Trestle to a spectacular view, and opening sky where I could physically feel the sun recharging my flagging spirits and injecting warmth into my bones.

Were it not for the presence of my newfound friend there’s a very real chance I might have burst into song, the light and warmth were so delightful.

We arrived in Meyersdale at a train station-turned information center, and it looked like the best camping option was the “Maple Festival Grounds,” and I called the number printed on a flyer hanging at the information center. A delightful woman answered and provided directions, including instructions to drop off cash for payment at a nearby diner. I rode down the hill from the trail and ultimately located the festival grounds while the sun was still shining and warming my spirits.

The festival grounds were unoccupied, but looked like they had quite the setup for the annual Maple festival as there were all manner of stalls, what seemed like a couple historic houses, and a large covered stage. For my purposes, it seemed they’d also put significant thought into catering to travelling cyclists. There were clothes lines with clothes pins, covered picnic tables, a bucket of bicycle cleaning supplies, firewood and portable metal fireplaces, and what would later become the best thing in the universe: a heated bath house.

I met up with my new friend, who was leaving the trail in Meyersdale, for dinner. The wonders of the festival campground were somewhat offset by the lack of food options, and we met at a pizza joint that was passable but otherwise unexciting (and unfortunately devoid of the malted beverages I had been looking forward to).

I walked back to camp, and had my first shower of the trip in the bath house. While the place was the standard concrete affair complete with random spiders and whatnot, the water was hot, and there was a small gas heater that took off the emerging chill in the air. The sun was setting as I dried off, and crawled into my tent.

Like any good trip, the day started with a minor mishap. As I was about to roll my bike out the door of my hotel, I remembered that I’d forgotten to top up the air in my tires. I figured this would be a worthwhile 5 minute effort, and after pumping the front and rear, as I went to unscrew my mini pump from the rear tire, I realized the pump had “grabbed” the valve core and the tire quickly deflated.

A not-so-brief word about tires… For whatever reason, there are two standard valve types on bicycle tires: Schrader, which is the value you’re probably familiar with from automobile tires, and Presta, which I’m told is a European standard.

I first travelled to Europe in my mid-20’s, and like many Americans experiencing “the continent” for the first time, I returned full of praise for the many superior aspects of Continental culture. From the excellent food, to the fabulous train systems, to the centuries-old buildings, I was sold that if America had it, it was likely better and more sophisticated in Europe.

As an older and wiser man, I’ll certainly trust a French baguette over whatever garbage is available at my local grocery store, but will pass on the Presta valve, a design that seems like it intentionally offers a 50/50 chance of catastrophically deflating your tire immediately after you’ve expended the effort to fully inflate it. After lamenting these technicalities, and finally having a bike with two inflated tires and a great deal of sweat on my brow, I donned my COVID mask, rolled out the door, and pedaled onto the Three Rivers Heritage Trail, which would take me from more or less the door of my hotel, to Point State Park, the official start of the GAP.

This trail passes several of Pittsburgh’s half-dozen steel bridges, spans that seem to say “Look, we not only can melt the iron, we can also fashion it into something useful and beautiful.” It was a nice introduction to the gradual journey I’d take back through the history of steel and industry over the coming days.

Once at a fairly quiet Point State Park, I paused for the obligatory “I’m riding the GAP!” photo. The faint rainbow is a work of physics rather than Photoshop, and I took it as a good omen for the journey ahead.

After a quiet moment of reflection about the journey that lay ahead, I hopped onto my mist-dampened saddle, and made my first few pedal strokes along the GAP, or at least one of the two urban paths that lead to what might be described as the trail proper.

I chose a narrow pathway next to an overpass, and thankfully my wide load and I didn’t encounter anyone moving in the other direction, lest one of us would have been forced to retreat. The trail then hugged the bank of the Monongahela River, passing behind office buildings and parking garages, eventually hanging a right and crossing the Hot Metal Bridge, which has gone from transporting rail cars of molten metal (hence the “creative” naming) to the more mundane cargo of pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles.

I took my last glance at the city of Pittsburgh, once again my host for a matter of hours before I went into the more remote parts of these grand United States.

After the Hot Metal Bridge, the trail cruised by the Pittsburgh Steelers training facility, and in a sign of the times, through the fencing I noticed a portable COVID “testing trailer,” a bit of an eyesore in front of what looked like a nice set of buildings, plastered with various signs that to admonish men who were paid to smash into each other to wash their hands and cover their coughs.

The trail continued along the river, passing a sad-looking unoccupied waterpark, various hotels and shopping centers, and industrial sites, both functioning and vacant.

I crossed over railroad tracks as a train lay hissing and stationary, like a snake lazily absorbing a bit of sun before slithering off to parts unknown.

The trains would be a constant companion for the trip, as I was riding over an old railroad bed and the bridges and towns designed to serve the railroad as it carried the men and material to feed the steel industry of a growing country.

Another of my great grandfathers, whom I’d never met, worked the railroads of Pennsylvania. I have no idea where or if he’d ever travelled these same tracks, but in my imagination I was connecting generations of the family as my “iron horse” rolled across a ghost railway, while active trains rumbled somewhere just out of sight.

An interesting feature of a trail like this is that you’re not alone, nor are you the only one aiming to complete the entire journey. In the first dozen miles I passed a pair of riders who I’d see on and off for the next several days, generally in a town at mealtime, or in this case, stopping as a train hauled its load through a crossing. Seeing others provided a nice balance to this particular set of trails. For 20-30 minutes at a time, you’d feel like the only human on an abandoned planet, sure that there was not another soul anywhere nearby. Then, someone would pass in the other direction with a nod or perhaps a ring of their bell and a “hello,” only to disappear as quickly as they’d arrived. There was the perfect amount of solitude combined with the assurance that help wasn’t too far away should something go wrong that required assistance or at least provision some moral support.

The trail runs through various towns along the way, many of which offer services to passing cyclists ranging from basic general store-type operations, to restaurants and bicycle shops. The first town of McKneesport seemed rather sleepy when I rolled through early in the journey, and was relatively uninteresting save for the second minor incident of the day.

As I’d discover, when you neared towns the number of walkers and day cyclists would obviously increase, and it was great to see people enjoying and using the trail. I’d suspect, or at least hope, that locals would be thrilled to see an abandoned railroad converted into something useful, and perhaps sing the praises of projects like the GAP to other communities and eventually create more of these routes around the country.

I’d passed dozens of others enjoying the trail as I pedaled out of McKneesport, when I saw a man with two large off-leash dogs up ahead. I own a dog and certainly understand the joys of a four-legged friend, but I simply don’t grok those that take their animals into public spaces without a leash. I’m sure Fido enjoys the ability to romp a bit, but the risk of everything from running off, to being hit by a car, to the topic of our next incident seems too great to make leash-less walks on public pathways worthwhile.

I had a bad feeling about this dude and his dogs, especially as his dogs became visibly more agitated as I approached and he shouted out the famous last words I almost always hear before being jumped on or otherwise harassed by an off-leash dog: “DON’T WORRY! THEY’RE ‘FRIENDLY!'”

Seconds after he uttered these words, I felt an odd feeling on my left leg, and looked down to find one of the dogs had my lower leg completely in his mouth. I wasn’t sure what type of “friendly” gesture this involved, so I shouted at the dog and unclipped my foot, at which point he bit my front pannier only to retreat as I cocked my bitten leg for a swift kick should this “friendliness” continue.

I looked at my leg and noticed no blood in the minor divots left by the dog’s teeth. I was in no mood for police reports, tetanus shots, or fisticuffs with this jackhammer of a human, so I told him to leash his stupid animals lest they end up being put down due to a complaint by someone less lucky or forgiving, and off I went.

It took a couple of miles to shake off my anger at this idiot, but other than some dog spit on my leg and panniers, and a frayed nerve or two, all was well on my end, so I resolved to put the incident behind me and pedaled on.

The trail was now “in the woods,” following the course of the Youghiogheny River. I passed the famous (or infamous?) red, white, and blue-ish creeks, signs of the coal and iron mining that had occurred here and driven demand for the railroad. The white river looked like an unseasonably icy river, the “blue” river was merely lightly tinted, but the red river was obviously “iron rich” and drinking its water might cure any iron deficiencies from which one was suffering.

My overall plan for the trip was to average about 60 miles each day, and that put Connellsville, PA as my stop for the evening. I got there around 3PM, with the sun shining and legs that still felt like they had some life left in them. The town had a nice (and I would discover the last one I would see) free campsite with 3-sided lean-to’s for cyclists and hikers, and seemed to have a fair amount of services, yet I decided to press on and passed the campsite, and then rolled through the rather quiet city center.

It’s about 18 miles from Connellsville to the amusingly named (at least to me) Ohiopyle, and it’s also the start of the gentle uphill that ultimately climbs about 1800′ over the course of 45 miles or so. This is done via 1-2% grades, so certainly not difficult climbing by any means, but it definitely nocked 1-1.5mph off my average speed.

The area to and from Ohiopyle is state park, and really brought home the feeling of remoteness I described earlier. The trail was lovely and in perfect condition, creating little more than the sound of rolling tires and the thoughts inside one’s head.

I hadn’t seen much in the way of wildlife, but at a stretch where I hadn’t seen any people for some time, I noticed two moving brown blobs on the trail ahead. As I got closer, I realized it was two bear cubs. I’ve run into black bear before, once quite literally as I came across a bear while running on the roads of NH. In that encounter, I stopped, we looked at each other, and then since he/she refused to yield I turned around and ran the other way.

I’m not particularly worried about bear encounters except when it comes to cubs and mama bears, and the latter was nowhere to be seen. The cubs kept crossing the road back and forth, and were obviously enjoying themselves, but I didn’t see any signs of mama and wasn’t sure which side of the road she might be on. I started ringing my bell, and calling out the odd but universal “HEY BEAR!” call.

The cubs paused in their antics, looked at me, and then ambled off the trail. I gave them another minute, and still seeing no signs of mama bear, continued my dinging and “HEY BEAR’ing,” slowly approached, and then put it into high gear while looking for a rush of brown, rather foolishly hoping that I could outrun an animal known for short 30mph sprints on my beast of a bike.

Apparently mom and cubs had gone elsewhere, and we parted friends. I rode on happy I’d seen large mammals apparently having as much fun on the trail as I was.

Right outside the town of Ohiopyle, there’s a bridge that crosses the river, and made for some wonderful early fall color.

The town itself seemed cool, and a nexus for outdoor activity ranging from rafting and canoeing, to fishing, camping, and of course cycling the GAP. Town was rather quiet, with several of the restaurants closed, but I got a passable burger although was stymied in my quest for beer. It seemed the towns I stopped in for lunch always had a beer available, yet at dinner it was rare.

I’d established a “policy” for the trip to eat in restaurants for lunch and dinner (I was fasting for the breakfast period) to try and bring some tourist dollars into town, and for the most part outdoor seating was available and restaurants were open and glad to see patrons. This dinner was the first time I felt legitimately chilly once I stopped riding, and my wool hat and nanopuff jacket made their first of many appearances as I wolfed down some dinner before heading to camp.

The “trailside” camping in Ohiopyle was in the Ohiopyle State Park, and a sign helpfully directed me to the side trail to the campground, which was a few tenths of a mile back in the direction I’d come. The trail quickly turned steep, and signs suggested there was 0.3 miles to camp, and to dismount the bike.

This was a bit of an unplanned game of “hike a bike” and my GPS reported the grades went up to 18%, so on one hand I was glad I hadn’t attempted to climb the rough trail on a loaded bike, yet on the other hand cursing as I pushed my heavy steed via twisting handlebars uphill.

Once in the campsite, it seemed there was a large section of RV and “drive in” type camping, and a smaller section of what was termed “Walk-in” sites. After some exploring I found a suitably flat “walk in” site on the left after coming up the trail, and it was pleasantly isolated. I setup camp for the first time on the trip, and despite assurances from my phone and satellite communicator that there was a 0% chance of rain, I ultimately added the rain fly being on a first-name basis with Mr. Murphy and his Law.

As the sun set, I discovered my headlamp had somehow turned on during my travels and was just about out of battery, but I was able to charge it from my battery pack, and my little USB lantern had not suffered the same fate. As the sunlight dimmed, a light drizzle arose and I hopped into my tent during a gap in the showers, assuming this was a passing squall.

The drizzle quickly increased to a full-on pour as I pulled on my sleeping bag hood, checked the rain fly, and was soon fast asleep.

Day 0 Start: The lonely rice paddy
Day Finish: Pittsburgh, PA.
Miles Driven: 400’ish
Miles Cycled: About 0.2

What should one do in a time of global pandemic, and grave national peril? Take a long bike ride, of course. I’m being 90% serious and only 10% facetious; what better time to disconnect from media, and explore the great vastness of our country through the fantastic stereoscopic imaging devices most of us are blessed to have installed just above our sniffers, and below our shiny foreheads, rather than the glowing monocle in our pockets that serves as little more than a high-definition reality distortion field.

The moment I discovered, some years ago, that there was a 300+ mile trail that connected Pittsburgh, PA and Washington, DC., with nary a motor vehicle to be found on the entire stretch, I was intrigued. Going from north to south, the expanse starts with the Great Alleghany Passage (GAP), a multi-use trail converted from a former railroad right of way, which connects in Cumberland, MD, with the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) Towpath. The C&O was a canal designed to compete with the emerging railroad network of the time, and has a series of locks designed to transport goods on barges that were towed by pack animals (hence the towpath in the name). What better place for a water buffalo?

Suffering from a combination of lockdown fatigue, need of adventure, and desire to recon the trail for a future family trip, I hatched a plan to make a solo trip down the trail, aiming for about 60 miles per day and a week away from my day-to-day pandemic routine.

After exploring a few different options, I ended up grabbing a one-way rental car, which I picked up and loaded last night, and that whisked me to Pittsburgh with little fanfare or hassle. 

on arrival, I unloaded and reassembled my bike, sped down the five stories of parking garage, and rolled the couple blocks to my hotel, my first hotel since February, which is a significant milestone for someone that spent 50-150 nights in hotels for the better part of the last 20 years.

I had some time to explore, and in the interest of moving muscles and joints that had sat patiently in the car, I walked the beginning couple miles of the trip to streamline tomorrow’s departure.

I’d first visited Pittsburgh about 10 years ago when I was working with various oil and gas companies, and Pittsburgh was my jumping-off point into fracking country, and provided a night or two in a decent hotel, and a good meal before driving into the simultaneously invigorating and depressing lands that had weathered a half-dozen carbon-driven boom and bust cycles. First with coal mining, then with the early waves of oil exploration, and now with fracking. I remember tales of immigrant great grandparents who scratched out a living in the Pennsylvania coal mines, one of whom died from black lung as a young man, and I always felt a connection to the men and women who made a living in these dangerous industries, only to see a lucrative job disappear overnight due to economic vagaries or unpredictable swings in supply and demand.

Pittsburgh always felt like a scrappy, tough city to me, but in a positive way. It was Rocky Balboa, a fighter who had been knocked out, come back, and then done it all over again. It was nice to walk the streets and still see people of all descriptions in the parks, dining on the sidewalks, and generally existing with little fuss or drama.

A pleasant dinner, cool walk back to the hotel, and now the screeching of trains somewhere in the distance feels reassuring. The wheels of Pittsburgh and the nation are still turning. There’s still exploring to be done, and forward progress to be made.

Assuming more than occasional connectivity, I’ll post updates as I proceed towards our nation’s capital. I can already feel that this trip will be good medicine, and I’m relishing reconnecting with the simple flow of life that comes with eating, pedaling, sleeping, contemplating, and little else.

One of the sweetest mechanical sounds on Earth is that of a well-adjusted bicycle. For about the tenth time in a handful of days I took my touring bike for a spin around the neighborhood, finally achieving the perfect chorus of tires rolling over pavement, the gentle low rumble of a freshly oiled chain as its rollers slipped over the cogs, and the sound of the wind that flowed past my ears with each turn of the pedals. Nary a squeak or creak to be found, interrupted only by the satisfying “Click clack” of shifting gears: a “call and response” where the click of the shifter at my fingertips triggered an immediate clack from the rear derailleur as it dropped the chain into the next ring on the cassette, the pleasant feel of fresh bar tape under my palms. Gone were the rub in my front disc brake that created a rhythmic but annoying squeak, the creak in the seat post at each pedal stroke, and the gritty roughness of an unclean chain.

It would be hackneyed and trite to attribute zen-like qualities to bicycle maintenance, but there’s a definite satisfaction to identifying a problem, making some adjustments, getting closer to a fix, repeating the process, and then finally achieving success. Bicycles are simple enough that their adjustment is in the realm of anyone who can turn a screwdriver and afford twenty bucks worth of tools, and the knowledge and tools required for complete disassembly can be acquired for not much more.

This effort, probably no more than a couple of hours sprinkled in between a week of work and family obligations was in service of a larger objective: a six-day bicycle trip from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC on the Greater Alleghaney Passage and C&O Towpath trails, supposedly the longest contiguous car-free bicycle trail in the United States.

I’ve wanted to explore these trails with the family for quite a while, but it’s probably about two years too early for my youngest child, so this trip is approximately 30% recon, 70% “escape from COVID-induced stir craziness,” although it may have been “sold” based on flipping those percentages. We’re admittedly incredibly lucky as a family, healthy, gainfully employed, and children slowly returning to a reasonably normal version of school. However the morass of uncertainly and negativity driven by elections, COVID, and general stream of bad news has taken its toll on us, as it seems to have done to the general population evidenced by a tension and rudeness on the roads and in public that I’ve not experienced with this consistency.

It may not be the right answer, but the best answer I’ve got is going out on an adventure where all the nonsense is stripped away, and life becomes little more than eating, propelling oneself under one’s own power towards a distant objective, and finding food and a place to pitch one’s tent along the way. Life gets stripped to its essence, and the garbage that’s injected into our brains become superfluous and distant. I didn’t realize how deeply my soul needed this outlet until I started taking physical steps to prepare for the journey, from pulling camping gear out of storage, to preparing my bicycle and body for the journey.

With T-minus five days until departure to Pittsburgh as I write this, the anticipation is palatable, and like the stereotypical “kid the night before Christmas” I find myself counting the days, and gazing longingly at the growing collection of “stuff” waiting to be packed into panniers and strapped to my bicycle. It’s a wonderful feeling to anticipate a journey, doubly so in a time where so much seems outside our individual spheres of influence, and every action seems fraught and subject to change. The act of loading everything I need to survive and thrive on a bicycle, and being captain of my own destiny is a thought so liberating I almost have to suppress the idea for most of the day lest I lose my ability to focus on much else.

My gear is assembled, the bicycle is tuned to perfection, and my fitness should be appropriate for reasonable 60-mile days. Now it’s a matter of relishing the anticipation in measured doses until that first pedal stroke forward.