C&O no-go

Glen Echo to Gaithersburg, Maryland Sunday, Halloween 2021

It’s hard to overstate the importance of the C&O Canal in our nation’s, and in my history. It dates back to George Washington, who saw the Potomac as a path to the nation’s interior, and envisioned a series of bypass canals to detour around the waterfalls and rapids. His idea morphed into the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, an Erie Canal wannabe, hoping to cash in on the westward expansion gravy train, linking the Chesapeake Bay with the Ohio River, and the Mississippi basin.

The idea was doomed from the start. On the same day John Quincy Adams turned the first shovelful of dirt on July 4th, 1828, the B&O railroad kicked off from Baltimore. Unlike the Erie, which traversed mainly flat terrain, the C&O cut through rugged mountains and paralleled an unruly river. At one point, Paw Paw, a tunnel had to be built, the first canal tunnel in the world. Construction was dogged by labor disputes, poor treatment of immigrant workers, and cholera outbreaks. By the time it reached Cumberland MD in 1850, a little over halfway to Pittsburgh with the Great Eastern Divide (over 2000 feet high) yet to cross, the B&O had been there 8 years, and the canal was obsolete.

The unfinished canal enjoyed some success, it could haul coal cheaply and was competitive if speed of delivery was not a factor. The Potomac flooded frequently, however, necessitating expensive repairs, and after a bad one in 1924 the canal was abandoned, and soon became a derelict ditch. It was saved from being paved over by a highly-publicized hike in March 1954 by Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, was partially restored (most of it still a ditch with a towpath) and in 1971 became a national historical park. The river didn’t get the memo, though, and still floods frequently, with frequent closures.

The Douglas hike was two weeks before I was born, and the canal has always been magical for me. At age 14 my buddy Eric and I did our first “bike hike” to Great Falls, an audacious 30 mile trip that began my love affair with bike tours. So appealing: flat, beautiful, a conduit through history and mountain scenery without climbing, and with “hiker-biker overnighter” campsites every 5 miles. We did many trips in our Raleigh 3-speeds with wire baskets carrying our trash-bag protected gear. Many of you have heard my “famous outhouse” story, where we were caught in a freezing March rain with only a Sears drop cloth for shelter, and four of us had to cram in to a smelly old outhouse for hours, before bolting 10 mountainous miles in the sleet to be picked up at Harpers Ferry. A sympathetic friend dubbed it “the greatest wussy story ever told”.

It didn’t matter. I was hooked. I have biked the 184 mile length of it three times, and it never gets old. In a twist of irony, one of the rail lines that spelled the defeat of the canal went bankrupt itself, and was converted into a rail trail, the Great Allegheny Passage, that completed the route to the Ohio. The GAP is newer, better graded and surfaced, and goes through restored, lighted tunnels and over impressive viaducts. In 2012 I bribed Jane and Hope into doing the whole enchilada, 335 miles from DC to Pittsburgh, by staying in posh B&Bs. I was in heaven, but as quoted in my 5/19/21 post, Jane dismissed it as “a boring green tunnel”. Well.

So it’s been nine years since I pounded the towpath, and it was the hook that got me going on this resurrection of the highpoint junket. Irresistible, a slingshot shooting me deep into the mountains with minimal hills, depositing me 10 miles from Mt. Davis, the Pennsylvania summit. Eagerly anticipating, I downloaded a complete towpath guide, full of the rich historical minutia that really floats my boat.

Ah, romanticism vs. reality. The connecting path from Glen Echo was comically rough, down a steep railroad tie-studded slope I knew I could never get back up again, then around some washed out spots from the recent rain that were almost impassable. I was relieved to hit the relative safety of the towpath. It started out great

but soon devolved into ruts, roots, rocks and some near-washout spots. I knew this was the best-maintained part of the canal, and that crappy weather was coming soon. I’d ambitiously secured a warmshowers host 60 miles up the canal at Harpers Ferry, involving many metal steps to cross the bridge over the Potomac, and a warning from the host of a steep climb to his house. The thing about cycling in the late fall is, it gets dark early. I’d gotten one of my trademark jackrabbit starts (9:30). There were only primitive campgrounds (back in the day, I didn’t care that the hiker-biker sites had only a water pump) for accommodations before Harpers Ferry.

I knew all this in advance, of course. I knew some critical points, like the Paw Paw Tunnel, were closed, and that the detours were irksome. If I’d thought it through, I might have guessed that rattling down a bumpy path for hundreds of miles with my arthritic bones and a 110 pound bike might not be a cakewalk. But hey, I’m a guy. As Jane loves to say, guys have the dumb-stick.

In 10 miles, I hit Great Falls, more impressive than usual with the recent rain.

I was transported back to age 14, where it all began, but now the trip seemed even more audacious. Just like at the base of the Rockies, the wind was out of my sails. I talked with Jane for an hour, and decided to duck out to a motel. It was 12 miles off the canal, but I was pretty sure I had to deep-six the canal idea.

Even on this downer of a day, there were Easter Eggs. It was Sunday, scads of people were out, and my tricked-out bike got lots of those oohs and ahhs that I seem to crave. When booking the motel, I discovered I had something called Hilton Honors points that allowed me to score a nice room for $4.29. At a Subway, I helped a woman having trouble calling an Uber, she was just back from hiking in the Pennsylvania mountains I was headed for. We chatted awhile she waited for her ride, and it turns out she is the sister of Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve.

I know. A typical DC moment, random brushes with greatness. Shameless name-dropping. But she was delightful, and the encounter brightened my day considerably.

Distance 22 miles, 4,490 total. Time 6 hours with stops. Elevation gain 728 feet