She Who Must Be Obeyed and I biked from Brunswick, Maryland to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia on the C&O Canal. It's not too long a ride, and on the e-bikes it was fast and pain-free.
Harper's Ferry was where John Brown tried to spark a slave insurrection (he failed) by capturing the armory there. Brown and 18 of his men were finally captured by Robert E. Lee (not yet a traitor to the nation) and Brown was convicted and hung in Charles Town for treason on December 2, 1859.
Today Harper's Ferry is a small tourist destination and the crossroads of two great American trails -- the C&O Canal and Greater Allegheny Passage which, combined, are a perfect and quite beautiful nearly-level bike trail from Georgetown in Washington, D.C. to Pittsburgh, Pennsylania -- a combined distance of 335 miles, and the Appalachian Trail, which stretches from 15 miles south of Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin in Main -- a distance of between 2,100 and 2,200 miles depending on the occasional detour, etc.
Harper's Ferry is about the halfway mark, and the farthest north I have hiked (not all in one throw) starting south of Springer Mountain in Georgia.
2 comments:
I thought the GAP's southern terminus was at Cumberland.
It is, but that’s also the northern terminus of the C&O — they literally connect. I’ve bike all of both.
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