Post #17 Virginia Reel

This week started on a high note: I got to see some family!  We spent Sunday evening at Corina & Tony’s home in Baltimore, and Jordan and Sarah joined us for a late dinner.  After a huge breakfast and a trip to the grocery story on Monday, we said our goodbyes and Anita drove me to Harpers Ferry, a two hour trip from Baltimore.

My hike south started on the Maryland side of the Potomac River. Around 1830, a race to Ohio, between the builders and financiers of the C&O canal and the B&O railroad, began. The tracks and canal are within 100’ of each other on the section of the adjacent towpath that the AT is on. After several years the RR got to Ohio first and proved to be more economical to transport commodities. While the canal was used, it never was completed all the way to OH. Today, only a few remnants of the canal remain but the cut stone walls of the scores of locks are still there. The adjacent towpath, now part of the national park system, is about 200 miles long, and has campsites every 20 miles or so, making it a great place to do some bicycle camping.

The rain continued to fall as I trod the towpath and the pedestrian bridge across the Potomac to enter the historic town of Harpers Ferry. To refresh your memories, Harpers Ferry is where John Brown and his sons raided the arsenal in the hopes of leading a revolt of armed slaves. The US army responded by sending troops led by some guy named R E Lee. Many of the old buildings have been preserved or restored which make the village a popular place to visit. I was tempted to linger longer but the rainfall was putting a damper on things, so I ascended back into the hills.

  After hiking a couple of miles in Maryland and a handful of miles in West Virginia, I entered Virginia, where the next 550 miles of the AT resides.  The trail from HF to Shenandoah National Park may be the nicest part of the AT that I have hiked to date.  There are hills but they are not big, and there are some rocky sections followed by long smooth stretches of the foot path.  There is a 14 mile section of trail known as the “roller coaster” that has many climbs and descents, but all are less than 1000’ long.  A lot of this section uses switchbacks which make the grades more moderate.

  Over the course of the week, I met just three other thru hikers, all Flip Floppers, just a handful of section hikers, and a few day hikers.  After I asked a particular thru hiker, Cyborg, what his name was, he reminded me that we had met last week in Vermont.

  After Monday’s all day rain, the rest of the week had just afternoon showers for me in addition to some Virginia humidity.  I was really enjoying the weather in New Hampshire and Vermont where the daytime highs were about 70 degrees with low humidity.  So I wasn’t accustomed to sweating.  Adapting is the name of the game.  I would try to rinse out my shirt in the evenings but that meant that I was putting on a wet shirt each morning because it was too humid for my shirt to dry overnight.

  After the afternoon showers on Friday, the weather changed that night.  Both the humidity and temperatures dropped, making Saturday morning one of those days that made me feel alive.

  I noticed that as the temperatures dropped throughout the night, the cicadas got quieter, which made the owl that was perched about 30’ feet from my hammock sound that much louder at 3:00 am.  I enjoyed seeing more wildlife this week: deer, rabbits, and snakes.  The copperhead at the shelter area made me tread very carefully when answering the call of nature in the middle of the night.  The rat snake living in the shelter adjacent to where I stayed later in the week, was enough to discourage other hikers from sleeping inside.

  I ended the week in Shenandoah National Park, where I am currently waiting for Corina and Tony to pick me up (and deliver my Subway sandwich) and we’ll spend the Labor Day weekend camping with Jordan and Sarah.