Monday,
Williamsport, MD to 17 miles south of Cumberland at Town Creek Aqueduct, MD 63
miles of riding in 5:25 hrs
Another fairly tough day of riding, but this time I covered
a bit more ground.
Today started off with a massive BANG --- as a tree in the
put-put gold area came crashing down and hit my van. We were eating breakfast
and then heard this loud bang and then the crashing sound of the tree, and the
very end of the branches hit my van. I actually saw it falling towards the van
and thought that we’d had it. But it was just the last few feet of branches
that actually landed on the top of the van. Now the paint was ever so lightly
scraped, kind of like the finish. But wow, what it could have been were we
about 10 feet closer in the parking area to the tree van may have been smashed.
Very lucky indeed.
The park people came running over and it seemed they were
pretty relieved that we were unharmed. My van? Hell, I guess I could have
raised a stink, but shoot, it was just a light surface scrape on one side so I
was cool. I hate getting into all the litigation crap that people are on today.
No real harm, no foul! No litigation. Done!
I got rolling at about 9 AM. Judy’s back is still no where
near good enough to do any riding, so I’m still going to bag it on the early
side for the time being such that she’s not in the car driving and waiting all
day long. Besides, with the trail conditions this year, these 40-60 mile rides
still get me tired. So for the first 25 miles to Hancock it was back to the
mudfest that I’d experienced on Saturday – not quite as extensive, but a
mudfest nonetheless. It was made even worse by the maintenance vehicles that
had been on the trail with theses big dual wheel trucks that just mushed all
the water around and created a quagmire left and right. So I was back to
dodging all the mud and puddles trying not to get coated in mud. I’d pull the
bike up onto the side of the trail, in the weeds to avoid the muckpits. And for
the most part that worked pretty well. On the negative side I still had a
pretty good headwind out of the west. So that coupled with the rough trail
conditions kept my average below 13 mph. And I’ll tell you I’m not
dilly-dallying at that pace.
Made it to Hancock in just over 2 hrs, met Judy at the van
and went in for a quick lunch of beef jerky, cashews and coke. Oh yea, what a
lunch!! Gave Judy direction to the next stop, the Town Creek Aqueduct, about 40
miles up the trail. Took a few sports bars and headed out, this time to not
only the mud puddles and muck, but also a good deal of deadfall. The storms of
the past several days really put a nasty on the trail right this season. Now I
didn’t have to stop to shoulder the bike, but I did have to really slow down
and navigate through the mess every now and then.
This section of trail, from Hancock to Cumberland is
probably the most remote. It’s situated on the south side of the Green Ridge
State Forest, a pretty mountainous area of Western MD. The trail is long and
empty pretty much of people except for the occasional group of thru riders with
panniers on the bike. Other than that I’d ride for 30-45 min without seeing a
soul. Then maybe a group of 2-4 thru riders would go by me pedaling to DC. It
was very quiet and very rewarding to ride through this section. Now my big gaff
for the day was forgetting to bring a light for the Paw Paw Tunnel – a long
stretch of tunnel that’s about ¾ mile long. So long that it’s pitch black
inside at the half way point. I was hoping that I’d have the tunnel tomorrow,
but I’d forgotten just where it was from last year’s ride. Anyway, I knew as
soon as I hit this long uphill stretch of trail that I was about to go into the
tunnel with no light.
Rode about the first quarter mile on the bike until it just
got so dark that I couldn’t even see my hand in front of me. I just pushed the
bike, trying not to hit the wooden fencing with it, and then trying not to hit
my head against the side of the rock on my left hand side. Passed a couple
people in there, with lights, but that was towards the end where I could see
again. All in all, it was no big deal. From there I rode another 5 miles to
meet up with Judy. Called it a day at the Town Creek Aqueduct so we could go on
a scouting mission for a campground.
And
that was about as hard as riding in the mud today. Damn there just wasn’t a
thing other than a few primitive sites along the canal path, but no electric,
no cell reception, no wifi, no nothing other than porta toilets and well water.
I mean these were tucked down in the middle of the mts with not much available.
So we drove into Cumberland in hopes of finding a place along the way – Nope.
So we stopped for beer and I asked a guy there about camping. He told me there
was nothing but a place called Rocky Gap State Park, about 10 miles out on
I-68. Hell, we’d already driven 17 miles from my stop point, and now another
10. Initially we started on 68 East, and then just said “hell with that – too
far to go”. So we thought about a cheap motel. Did a U and back towards
Cumberland. Stopped at this dive of a place just a few miles before Cumberland,
and Judy was just totally spooked by it. Have to admit that I’d have stayed
there were I solo, but she had a case of the willies, so we continued back into
the city. Went to the Towpath visitor’s Center and got the skinny on the
motel/hotel situation – all over a hundred bucks – NOPE.
We did get beta on a YMCA in town that charges 10 bucks to
camp. Bingo, we were there! Made dinner in the pavilion and I’m here now in the
lobby using the wifi rather than my air card. Not a bad deal. We’ll sleep in
the van and be very happy we saved a boat load of money.
Tomorrow on to the Great Allegheny Trail and to
Ohiopyle. I’ve been told that the first 2 miles of the GAT are paved, so I’ll
be shouldering the bike or maybe riding railroad ballast to compensate. Until
tomorrow………Pete
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