At Cedar Creek Campground beside the Youghiogheny River near West Newton, Pa., it was the last morning of Greenway Sojourn 2007. On June 30 the sun was shining, Sojourners were loading luggage onto 24-foot rental trucks or munching bagels. Carl Knoch, back from an emergency run to buy toilet paper, loaded a CD into the staff Prius and cranked up the volume: “I like to ride my bicycle! I like to ride my bike…”
“Yeah!!!” somebody called, “Carl’s jammin’!”
If the Queen song was an answer, perhaps the question was: Why do we organize the Greenway Sojourn? Why does RTC’s Northeast Office spend considerable energy over nine months, planning to shuttle, route, feed, encamp and entertain several hundred cyclists, not to mention hauling their bicycles and luggage?
“Yeah!!!” somebody called, “Carl’s jammin’!”
If the Queen song was an answer, perhaps the question was: Why do we organize the Greenway Sojourn? Why does RTC’s Northeast Office spend considerable energy over nine months, planning to shuttle, route, feed, encamp and entertain several hundred cyclists, not to mention hauling their bicycles and luggage?
Partly it is because we like to ride our bikes—this year with 500 of our closest friends. We wanted to offer an active vacation while celebrating the opening of the D.C. to Pittsburgh trail. The Great Allegheny Passage rail-trail portion is so scenic and popular that RTC has inducted it as the first trail in its new Rail-Trail Hall of Fame, with a presentation by RTC president, Keith Laughlin, to ATA president, Linda Boxx, in Cumberland on June 27 during the Sojourn.
Primarily, however, the Greenway Sojourn is a tool for trail building. Where there is a gap in the trail or some other need, the Sojourn allows us to heighten awareness. Collaborating with local organizations, ride organizers took the opportunity to inform Sojourners and the media about the work remaining to be done.
As Sojourners discovered, riding the C&O Canal Towpath is a trip through the past. You see canal locks, lockhouses and other remains from the time when mules pulled boats carrying tons of cargo, and entire families tended the locks. But it’s easy to overlook the cost of maintaining these historic structures.
Sunday, as we neared Brunswick, Md., we were reminded. Participants were invited to tour Lander Lockhouse, the only locktender’s dwelling on the C&O that’s been restored and furnished to represent the period. Local advocates did the interior renovations and now maintain it. A half-mile up the trail, some of those volunteers have a new project that they pointed out, Catoctin Aqueduct. Built ca. 1832-1834, the stone aqueduct carried the C&O Canal over Catoctin Creek. Often called the most beautiful of the eleven on the canal, the aqueduct suffered the collapse of two of its three arches in 1973. Slated for repair by spring 2009, it will be faced to look like the granite original, with a stronger, poured concrete interior, according to Pepper Scotto, treasurer of the Catoctin Aqueduct Restoration Fund. Cost of the project will be $3.4 million, and fundraising is still ongoing.
On Monday detour signs sent Sojourners around a 2.7-mile gap in the C&O Canal Towpath at Big Slackwater, so called because there the Potomac is widened and flattened by a dam. This stretch has been impassable since a flood eroded the bank in 1996. Some riders groaned at the climbs on the several-mile road ride while others liked seeing more of the countryside.
Regardless, when Maryland state senator Donald Munson joined us for dinner at River Bottom Park in Williamsport, he cited a swell of support on the state, federal and local levels and asked all Sojourners to write their congressional delegates urging funds for repairs of the only break on the C&O. Greenway Sojourn ride director Tom Sexton presented a check for $2,500 to Tom Perry, chair of Big Slackwater Restoration, to further funding efforts. Perry and volunteers, including his young grandson, had personally handed out cold water at the top of a hill on the detour. At dinner he asked for signatures on a petition supporting the project.
For a change of pace on Tuesday from the sometimes rough surface of the C&O, the Sojourn took advantage of the Western Maryland Rail Trail. About ten miles before the Hancock, Md. lunch stop, cyclists picked up the smoother, asphalt-paved trail. In Hancock Tom Sexton presented a $2,500 check to Penny Pittman of the Western Maryland Rail Trail Supporters to further their advocacy. Twelve miles up the trail the group’s 80-year-old “chair emeritus” Emmie Woodward pointed out the Paw Paw Bends area, where the WMRT group plans to build another 14 miles of trail. According to Woodward, the new rail-trail will cross and recross the Potomac on six high trestle bridges and pass through three tunnels in a magnificent wilderness.
From Cumberland, Md., where the C&O Canal Towpath and the Great Allegheny Passage were joined last December, the Sojourn had clear cruising all the way to McKeesport, Pa. There the “grand opening ride” for the two combined trails paused for a final celebration of the accomplishment to date. Hand-painted trail banners lined the trail at the Palisades.
Inside, a sumptuous brunch awaited under swags of lights. Exuberant karaoke singers had Sojourners dancing, while others helped artist Ann Rosenthal and her volunteers paint trail banners. Mayor Brewster proclaimed June 30 Greenway Sojourn Day in McKeesport. Likewise, the county made a proclamation. Tom Sexton presented a check from PA DCNR and the National Park Service for $10,000 to the Steel Valley Trail Council in support of the trail banner project and the funding push to finish the “gap in the GAP (Great Allegheny Passage.”
Then riders poured out of the Palisides to follow a state police escort over nine road miles that represent trail still to be completed. Led by ten motorcycle police, Sojourners filled a full lane on the roadway and sped through controlled intersections a bit like a bike race peloton. The pulse-quickening ride highlighted this stretch, which the Allegheny Trail Alliance (coalition of seven trail organizations building the Passage) intends to complete by the end of 2008.
Regrettably, getting back on the trail did not go as smoothly as planned because our signage crew was stuck in traffic. Sojourners had gotten strung out, and some disconcerted riders had to find their own way to the trail. Fortunately everyone did and finished safely. But with just a few miles to go on a hot day, cyclists were reminded in a way we did not intend, that, without a preserved rail corridor, some of the most challenging trail building on the entire Passage still remains to be done.
Susan Weaver
Photo of Williamsport campsite by Carl Knoch
