On a 335-mile journey alongside the Nice Allegheny Passage and the C&O Canal Towpath, editor-at-large Sebastian Modak discovered there was a lot to be taught by hitting the brakes.
I rolled into Cumberland, Maryland, with the distinct impression that I ought to be celebrating, but additionally the creeping feeling that I used to be about to surrender. For the previous three days, I had been touring by bicycle on a journey from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC, and this was the midway level…kind of. It was the midway level as a result of it was the place one path, the Nice Allegheny Passage, ended and one other, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath, started. It was not really midway – my mind jogged my memory – as a result of I had solely traversed 150 miles of easy, crushed limestone trails, which left about 185 miles of dust and dust to go.
This was one thing I might scarcely imagine existed after I first heard of it: a just about car-free bicycle route working a full 335 miles between two main American cities. Infrastructure for the sake of nothing however non-motorized recreation? A beautiful, winding bike path with common water pumps, bike restore stations and loads of entry to close by cities, the place motels and cafes catered to cyclists and hikers? Right here, within the land of highways and drive-thrus? It sounded nearly Scandinavian.
The Great Allegheny Passage – a rail path extending from Pittsburgh, by the plush Laurel Highlands, to Cumberland – was imagined to be essentially the most carefree a part of the journey. From there, the C&O Canal Towpath, the place mules used to tug barges alongside the waterway, would carry me over rougher terrain all the way in which into DC. The general route was flatter than most. I had packed tenting gear with me for the second half of the journey, however stayed, till that time, in comfy B&Bs the place I might finish every day with the dual luxuries of a chilly beer and a sizzling bathe. This was, in different phrases, imagined to be simple.
Sitting alone on a Cumberland park bench because the temperature crept up in direction of triple digits Fahrenheit, I regarded up the schedule for trains dwelling. A mixture of things had introduced me so far. There was the dangerous climate: a meteorological sport of tag between tree-felling thunderstorms and soul-crushing warmth. There was the motivation: even with common checkpoints to mark your progress, this kind of journey is simpler with firm than as a solo journey. After which there have been my knees: lengthy taken without any consideration and now shifting with all of the fluidity and ease of two historical millstones.
It wasn’t imagined to be like this. I had deliberate to satisfy an outdated pal in Pittsburgh two weeks earlier and cycle collectively, however these plans have been upended – like so many different issues – by COVID-19. After I examined constructive on the eve of the journey, I needed to cancel. After I examined damaging after two weeks of illness and isolation, I took it as a inexperienced mild and rode my bike to New York’s Penn Station for a prepare to Pittsburgh.
Underneath the stress of labor deadlines and antsy after a lot time in mattress, I had approached the journey with a misplaced want to show one thing to myself. Ache was meant to be ignored and pushed by. Hardship was a part of restoration. Objectives have been imagined to be troublesome to achieve.
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However now, in Cumberland, my physique was saying it wasn’t prepared for this but. How was I going to get to Washington, DC in two and a half days as I had deliberate? I wasn’t, I noticed as despair started to set in, earlier than one other thought crept into my thoughts, surprising in its simplicity. Certainly, I wasn’t going to get to DC in two and a half days…and that was okay. I’m undecided after I had began treating this journey like a race, however releasing the will to “win” was releasing. I made a decision I used to be going to provide myself a time off, right here in Cumberland, which I’d spend principally horizontal, ice on my knees, earlier than persevering with on with no actual plan and no self-imposed checkpoints. I’ll get there after I get there.
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Architectural marvels and tunnels of timber
By the point I hit Cumberland, the primary stretch of the journey on the Nice Allegheny Passage (GAP) had already became a blur, the place days bled into one another and psychological milestones have been bookmarked by thunderstorms.
The GAP begins (or ends, relying in your perspective) at Level State Park in Pittsburgh, on the confluence of the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. By the point I bought to the beginning line on the primary day, it was lunchtime. Having arrived by prepare, late at night time the day earlier than, I loved a gradual morning in Pittsburgh. I spent half-hour chatting to Mary Beth Karabinos and Paul Kletter, co-owners of Traveler’s Rest, a snug, understated, hostel-inspired guesthouse catering to cyclists within the metropolis’s South Facet neighborhood. From there, I made my method to Bicycle Heaven, the biggest bicycle museum on the earth. 1000’s of bikes spanning a long time fill a number of flooring of garishly lit, hallucinogenic rooms. For 20 minutes, I wandered aimlessly by a universe of spokes, handlebars and bicycle-themed tchotchkes. I left with a smile on my face.
By the point I discovered the start of the GAP, a light-weight drizzle had began, and I used to be about three hours not on time. Sixty miles to Connellsville. It was time to trip.
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If the primary day had, attributable to my sluggish begin, compelled me right into a race in opposition to daylight, the second was saved by a detour. The part of the GAP that runs by Ohiopyle State Park in southwestern Pennsylvania is arguably essentially the most lovely stretch of your entire Pittsburgh-DC gauntlet. Suspended over a steep gorge, the path crosses bridges and often results in lookout factors, the place a break within the thick summer time foliage reveals the speeding Youghiogheny River. The city of Ohiopyle – a haven for whitewater rafters, kayakers, and hikers – sits on a very kinetic bend of the river. And a pair miles north of city, up a steep winding street, is an architectural surprise.
Fallingwater is technically reachable by bike, however it isn’t really helpful, because the street is steep and frequented by vans. So I left my bicycle parked on the headquarters of Wilderness Voyageurs, an outdoor tour operator that gives shuttles to and from city. Hidden away within the woods of Bear Run Nature Reserve, Fallingwater is perhaps the primary piece of contemporary structure that has given me the punch-in-the-gut feeling of awe often reserved for nature. And that’s sort of the purpose.
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The architect Frank Lloyd Wright believed in what he known as “natural structure,” the place the delineation between what we construct and the place it’s constructed is porous. Within the case of Fallingwater – usually touted because the prime instance of this philosophy — which means a cantilevered concrete marvel suspended over a speeding waterfall. Accomplished in 1938 for the Kaufmann household, the constructing is now run by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, a personal nonprofit that runs excursions of the house. The sound of speeding water and birdsong is steady, regardless of in case you are outdoors or inside. Little particulars solely floor on a tour: the stacked floor-to-ceiling bed room home windows, which the Kaufmanns might use to regulate how loud the working water can be as they fell asleep; the picket cabinets, cantilevered simulacra of the constructing itself and the encircling rocky ledges; the uniform ochre and crimson shade scheme. By the point I left, taking the brief shuttle again down the hill to the city of Ohiopyle to get again on the bike, it felt like I had by no means actually left the woods in any respect.
That ought to have been my cue to decelerate, however having made the error of reserving lodging too far prematurely, I saved pushing myself. From Ohiopyle, I rode on to Confluence. And from Confluence, regardless of waking as much as pouring rain and re-inflamed, aching post-COVID knees, I rode 55 miles previous the Mason-Dixon Line, as much as the Jap Continental Divide, and down into Cumberland.
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Greater than historical past
Cumberland, Maryland, is a spot with echoes of significance. Right this moment, it’s a small city – inhabitants 19,500 – the place it may be exhausting to discover a meal after 9 pm, nevertheless it doesn’t take lengthy to comprehend that, tucked right into a valley on the terminus of the canal and on the intersection of two rivers, this place was as soon as a very massive deal. Large brick buildings, the light harbingers of American industrialization, nonetheless line the streets. In a tiny, one-room museum, the partitions are coated with outdated prepare timetables and work of steam engines pulling into downtown Cumberland, heaving with coal and iron ore certain for the capital and past.
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For just a few years within the nineteenth century, Cumberland sat on the crux of competing applied sciences – a liminal house between the ages. It’s exhausting to think about now, however at one time, essentially the most environment friendly method to transport items by dense woodland was a canal and a towpath. Mules can be hitched to a ship and, plodding alongside dust trails parallel to the waterway, pull items. By the point the C&O Canal had reached Cumberland in 1850, nevertheless, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad had been functioning for eight years. Although the canal continued in operation in some capability for an additional 74 years, it was already out of date by the point it opened.
Earlier than I left on the journey, I had spoken to somebody who had instructed me that, whereas the character was lovely, the small cities have been a part of what made this route so interesting. Bekah Zook now works because the excursions operations supervisor for the Montana-based Adventure Cycling Association, a nonprofit dedicated to bicycle touring, however she grew up within the area coated by the GAP and C&O trails. She estimates that she’s accomplished the route between 50 and 60 instances through the years.
“Having this hall between these two actually massive city areas that’s so quiet and so secluded actually forces you to deal with the smaller communities that exist between the large metropolitan areas,” Zook mentioned. “These are locations that lots of people don’t find out about, so this trip actually provides you the house to go to them in a very distinctive manner.”
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On the town after city, on each the GAP and the C&O, I noticed vestiges of a grandiose previous and an unsure future. After I’d see empty streets and boarded-up homes, it was exhausting to think about that the cities stretching east of Pittsburgh and west of DC was once the commercial aorta of this nation – a producing powerhouse that created among the world’s first billionaires. Then I’d cross an deserted manufacturing facility or a row of mansions grown over with ivy, and it might make sense.
As a brown man, at instances, it was unattainable to disregard the fearful whisper that accompanies any individual of shade touring in sure sparsely populated corners of the nation. I noticed sufficient Accomplice flags in sure neighborhoods to make me rethink stopping for lunch. After I walked right into a diner in Paw Paw, West Virginia, I might nearly hear the document scratch, as dialog ceased and a dozen heads turned in direction of me. I ordered a grilled cheese to go.
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However in addition to the occasional discomfort, the trip by the small cities that line each trails was an training and a delight. Within the idyllic group of Confluence, Pennsylvania, I stood in the midst of the street and spoke to an aged man named Jimbo for 45 minutes. My new pal, seemingly unconcerned that the entire pizza I used to be carrying again to my B&B was quickly getting chilly, instructed me what it was wish to develop up on this city when the inhabitants was twice as massive and “daily somebody was having a celebration.” As I used to be stepping into mattress, the doorbell of the Smith House Inn rang. Jimbo was questioning if I needed him to indicate me across the subsequent morning earlier than my trip, a proposal I couldn’t take up; I had a schedule to maintain.
In Hancock, Maryland, I took up a place on the huge deck of Buddylou’s Eats, Drinks, and Antiques and watched as households joked and laughed the afternoon away; one toddler provided me his half-eaten ice cream, which I respectfully declined.
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In Brunswick, Maryland, I discovered shelter from the rain at Beans in the Belfry, a church that has been transformed into the sort of cozy cafe that seems to have been constructed for wet days. By then, I had accepted my new take-it-slow strategy to the journey, so I ordered a slice of pie, pulled out a e-book and waited for the rain to die down. In Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, I sipped cocktails at Snallygaster’s, an old-timey common retailer transformed right into a wine bar.
Maybe most significantly every new city was totally different. It’s true that Metal Nation had as soon as been shinier and the coal mines had as soon as been treasure troves. It’s true that there are people who find themselves struggling, having been left behind by a shift in world manufacturing. However seeing these locations on the pace of a bicycle was the reminder I wanted that, like wherever, they’re locations with a future tense, too.
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Simply as I had spent lengthy hours on this journey overlooking the wonder round me, this was a lower of the nation that gave the impression to be perpetually missed by, properly, everybody. Or principally everybody.
Kletter and Karabinos of Traveler’s Relaxation, who instructed me they wouldn’t have opened the resort in Pittsburgh if not for the GAP Path, additionally instructed me they’ve had visitors from as far-off as Japan and New Zealand, flying midway the world over to trip the GAP and C&O.
“I hear from lots of people that it is a world-class path, and I do agree as a result of it has the facilities to help many types of journey,” Kletter mentioned, pointing to lodging choices that vary from $200/night time luxurious B&Bs to free campsites. “I actually suppose that it captures a real illustration of this a part of America: these outdated metal and coal cities that at the moment are in the midst of being reborn in a roundabout way, partially due to tourism.”
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A brand new strategy, a brand new tempo
The C&O towpath is a Nationwide Historic Park administered by the Nationwide Park Service and as such, in contrast to the Nice Allegheny Passage which was accomplished in 2013, it appears very similar to it did when it was first constructed centuries in the past. After days of rain, the trail had became thick mud and sections felt like using by peanut butter. On my first day again on the path after resting in Cumberland, forecasts remained in hellscape territory, however I not often felt the urge to maneuver sooner than 10 miles per hour.
Each few miles the tunnel of inexperienced would result in an outdated canal lock, the place water stream was as soon as regulated and canal boats have been lifted and lowered to new elevations. Typically, there can be lockhouses too, picket buildings from a time gone, the place the lockkeeper and their household would stay and work, waking up at odd hours when a ship would possibly cross by. (Right this moment, you can spend the night at among the lockhouses which have been outfitted to conjure totally different intervals by the canal’s historical past.)
Whereas I had sped by a lot of the informational plaques alongside the Nice Allegheny Passage, spurred on by some deranged urge for the journey to be over, alongside the towpath, I ended to learn them. There’s extra historical past in these lands than simply industrial booms and busts. I rolled previous Civil Warfare battlefields, routes that when intersected with the Underground Railroad and lands that, lengthy earlier than the arrival of European settlers, had been dwelling to a patchwork of Native American societies who lived off the bounty of the Potomac.
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Slowing down allowed small particulars to emerge into the foreground. The reverberant drumroll of a woodpecker’s beak hitting bark. The languid, satisfying plop of a turtle dropping into the canal’s waters, breaking by the algae that coated the stagnant water like a neon-green sheet. Every morning, I seen how all the pieces round me glistened below a skinny layer of morning dew. Every night, after a day of gradual and regular biking, I ended to look at the primary stars seem because the frogs started to croak.
I had initially outlined a five-day journey between Pittsburgh and DC. The time off in Cumberland shot that – refreshingly – to items. As soon as I removed the time restrict, different alternatives for diversion revealed themselves. The C&O’s frequently spaced, free hiker-biker campsites made going with the stream additional simple.
By the point I wakened in my tent, prepared for the ultimate stretch into Georgetown, I had been on the journey for a full week. My knees nonetheless harm, my garments had been soaked by and dried once more a minimum of 4 instances, and my bike was making some worrying noises each time it hit one of many frequent bumps on the towpath.
Rolling again out onto the path, a pair of cardinals chased one another in circles above me. Flowers peeked out from behind the wild tangle of weeds lining my manner ahead. The warmth had dissipated and even the forest gave the impression to be sighing in reduction. I used to be grateful to be shifting gradual sufficient to note.
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Make it occur
Getting there:
If you happen to’re inside prepare distance of both terminus, you don’t want a automobile to make this journey occur (bonus factors for sustainability!) I took Amtrak from New York, the place I stay, to Pittsburgh to start out my journey, and from Washington, DC again to New York. Each routes permit bicycles onboard – simply be sure to order (and pay for) a motorcycle spot prematurely, if you purchase your ticket.
Selecting a motorcycle:
Regardless of some bumpy roads alongside the way in which, you don’t want a mountain bike to finish the journey. That mentioned, you’ll be most comfy with one thing that has tires a minimum of 35mm huge, particularly for the C&O, which may get fairly tough, particularly after it rains.
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Talking of rain, the C&O, being unpaved, could be very inclined to wash-outs, landslides, and development work, which suggests there are frequent closures of sure sections of the path, requiring detours. Verify the National Park Service’s website for up-to-date data.
Getting some assist:
If you happen to don’t wish to carry your personal bike (or carry your personal stuff), you’ve gotten choices! A lot of tourism outfitters supply guided rides of the GAP and C&O. Others supply shuttle companies, baggage transport, and bike leases. A number of path veterans I met really helpful Golden Triangle Bike in Pittsburgh. Woman Tours organizes supported all-women bike excursions, together with on the GAP and C&O. I bumped into one in all their teams repeatedly on the path, and was envious of their comfortable set-up.
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