Finishing the C&O Canal

We're in Cumberland Maryland, the western terminus of the 184.5 mile long Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. As may have been obvious, we loved the C&O.

There is much to recommend the tow path. We had fun tracking the different terrain: mountains, cliffs, open farm fields, and wooded swamps. We've mentioned the stands of ghost trees (sycamores), Eastern Red Buds (thanks for the name Sharon) and of course, the wild flowers. We barely mentioned the Fauna, but this too was great fun. While we only ever heard a splash and saw the tail end of a muskrat or beaver diving under water, we saw lots of gnawed trees. Great Blue Heron were common on the eastern half of the canal and crows, owls, hawks, mallards, geese and many other birds accompanied us all along the way. The turtles were legion and we never stopped getting a kick out of seeing them hanging out on logs singly or in families. Mostly we even enjoyed the many types of beautiful and funny looking bugs. We were shocked and tickled by the number and variety of spiders and at the end of the trail resignedly accepting of the number of gnats and mosquitos.

The weekly pattern of activity was soothingly consistent. During the week we often saw only one other person on the trail -- a solitary jogger, a dog walker, a fellow hiker, an early evening biker. On the weekends, by contrast, the trail erupted into activity with families camping, church bike-outings and people of all ages, shapes and sizes fishing (though no one ever seemd to catch anything). While we saw the trail as one long route, the communities along the C&O take advantage of it as a local resource for outdoor activities of all kinds.

Speaking of which, if you're ever in Hancock, on the wasp waist of Maryland, be sure to rent a bike at C&O Bicycle and say hello to a very sweet tow path local, Dennis-the-bike-guy. He'll tell you where to get the best food in town.

Our favorite curious historical fact about the canal is that it was obsolete before it was finished. Even though it was an early dream of George Washingtons, the canal builders didn't get started until 1828. By 1850, when they reached Cumberland, the new railroad technology had far outstripped the canal's. The Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) railroad, which parallels the canal and started construction on the same day as the the C&O, reached Cumberland four full years earlier. The train then continued on to the Ohio river, a goal the tow path architects had abandoned.

The canal's life as a transportation system spanned roughly 75 years. It has now been a National Historic Park for nearly forty. Let's hope this reincarnation is more successful than it's last.