Dan Casey

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ON THE C&O CANAL TOWPATH - By 9 p.m., a layer of dried mud coated our arms and legs. Our shoes, shorts and shirts were sopping wet and caked with splattered dirt, and the gritty mess thrown up by the C&O Canal Towpath covered our mountain bikes and gear. Doug Clary, John Rathbone and I were as dirty as we had ever been in our lives.

Everything possible had gone wrong in the first nine hours of our four-day, 185-mile bike adventure. Washington, D.C.-gridlock delayed our shuttle driver by an hour. An accident and a traffic jam on Interstate 70 cost us another hour. Just after the shuttle finally dropped us and our bikes in Cumberland, Md., a violent thunderstorm rocked that railroad town for  of course!  yet another hour. We hit the trail three hours late, after the sky cleared and a hasty decision to make a run for Paw Paw, W.Va., a small town about 30 miles east.

Water from the storm had turned the towpath into an endless chain of shiny brown puddles. As we rolled along, we tensely watched as the sun dropped lower and lower on the horizon. Geese attacked us. Finally daylight's last faint glow faded, the stars and mosquitoes came out, bats dive-bombed us  and we were still 10 miles from our destination.

We arrived in Paw Paw about 10 p.m. under the providential light of a high-powered headlamp and quickly jettisoned our plan to camp in favor of warm showers and dry bunks in the Red Rooster Hostel. But outside the hostel was a large sign, "By reservation only," and worse, it was dark. We knocked, rang the bell, walked around the building, and nobody answered. So we rolled a block down the street to a convenience store, bought food and beer, and tried to figure out a plan.

Rathbone, who hails from Virginia Beach, interviewed some customers, and within 10 minutes he gathered three essential facts. First, the hostel owner lived in town. Second, his mother owned a bed and breakfast there. The third was delivered with a hush, though it was probably the worst-kept secret in Paw Paw: If we couldn't find him at home or at Mom's, he was probably at his girlfriend's place. The locals also provided the phone numbers for all three.

Around 11, I reached him, and the conversation went something like this:

"Hi. I'm one of three bikers who left Cumberland at 6:30 and just arrived in town. We'd planned to camp, but we're filthy as can be and we're desperate for showers and dry bunks. We're hoping you can come out and let us in the hostel oh, and by the way, sorry to bother you so late."

He sounded friendly, though a bit weary.

"I'm in bed. And it would take me 30 minutes to get there."

"Well, I can assure you, we won't mind waiting if you don't mind coming down here and opening up the hostel."

"What's your name?"

"Dan."

"Look Dan, I want you to do me a favor. Out in back of the hostel is a house trailer. That's where my night sentry stays. His name is Denny. He's asleep now, but all you need to do is bang on his door, wake him up, and tell him I told you to tell him to set you up... He'll probably be ornery, but he won't hurt you too bad."

And so ended our first day on the C&O Canal Towpath -- clean, dry and sleeping like babies.

Odd creature of history

The rest of our trip was less eventful but far more educational. Each of us got a close-up history lesson on 19th-century transportation, and along the way we visited historic Civil War battle sites such as Antietam, scene of the bloodiest day in U.S. history, and Harpers Ferry, where abolitionist John Brown staged the armory raid that helped spark the war.

In the Colonial era, long before railroads existed, America's navigable rivers were key transportation corridors. Lock-system canals provided the solution to steep and treacherous places in those rivers by allowing loaded barges to safely get around waterfalls, rapids and other unnavigable areas. By the early 1800s, more than 3,000 miles of canals provided vital trade and transportation links throughout the original 13 states.

Dan Casey | The Roanoke Times

One of the sites along the way includes a restored C&O Canal boat.

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Map

• Map of the C&O Towpath

But some big-dreaming transportation planners around that time had an even grander scheme. If they could build a single canal linking Washington, D.C., with Pittsburgh, it would create a navigable waterway from the Ohio River to the Chesapeake Bay. This would link the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, and spur migration toward the northern Plains.

With that in mind, on July 4, 1828, President John Quincy Adams broke ground on what was then known as the Great National Project, a 460-mile canal that would cost $3 million and take 10 years to build. But labor problems, disease, holdups in financing and rivalry from railroads combined to slow the project. Some 22 years and $13 million later, the canal in 1850 ceased its construction in Cumberland, far short of the original goal. Railroads, meanwhile, were laying new track much more cheaply. In that way, the canal was almost obsolete before it was even half-built.

Nevertheless, regular barge traffic plied the canal over the next 74 years, with thousands of barges making the journey annually. Most of them carried coal to the East from western Maryland at a cost of $25 a ton. The C&O's peak year was 1871, when barges carried 850,000 tons of coal along it, at about 100 tons per barge.

Saved from paving

By the late 1800s, the canal already had survived several disastrous floods, including the Johnstown flood of 1889. In 1924, yet another devastating flood spelled doom. By then, railroads already had taken much of the canal's business, and it was hard to justify the sums that were needed to repair it.

The federal government took over the property in 1938, restored and rewatered the first 22 miles, and laid the groundwork to turn the canal land into a national park. World War II suspended that effort, however, and by the early 1950s, there was another scheme afoot: The federal government wanted to pave over the canal and turn it into a parkway along the Maryland side of the river up through the Potomac River Valley. Such a plan was endorsed by The Washington Post.

Enter Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. In 1954, the passionate conservationist issued a public challenge to the newspaper's editors. Hike the canal with me, and afterward, see if you believe it should be paved, Douglas said. The Post accepted, and the nine-day hike became a national news story. Douglas' hiking party numbered 58 reporters, photographers, naturalists, geologists and others. They were feted at towns along the way, the story was covered by Time magazine, and the resulting publicity spurred enough interest to kill the parkway plan. The canal became the nation's first National Historical Park in 1971; it was dedicated to Douglas in 1977.

Four days

Today, the park comprises almost 20,000 acres. More than 2.7 million people visited it in 2003. The towpath runs between the canal and the river. It's 7 to 12 feet wide, a mixture of gravel, sand and dirt, and is open to pedestrians, bicycles and horses but is closed to motorized vehicles. It's virtually flat, except at the locks, where there are slight downhill dips heading toward Washington. Many roads cross it, so it's easily accessible by car.

Fortunately, modern cycling technology has made retracing Douglas' footsteps possible in less than half the time he spent hoofing it. After our 30-mile white-knuckle evening dash to Paw Paw, on the first day, we averaged about 60 on days two and three and wrapped it up in Georgetown with 35 leisurely miles on day 4. (Rathbone had to quit on the third day, in Harpers Ferry, because of a business commitment).

Our legs were tired, our butts were sore and we'd been splattered with about five years' worth of mud and dirt along the way. But the history we learned, the wildlife we observed and the people we met made it all worth it.

We're already making plans for a return next year.

If you go...

The C&O Canal parallels the Potomac River and runs 184.5 miles from Washington, D.C., at sea level, to Cumberland, Md., elevation 600 feet.

Camping: The towpath has trailside campsites every 5 to 10 miles, except for very close to Washington, D.C. Almost all these sites have potable water (a hand pump), a picnic table, a grill, a well-maintained privy and a fire ring. Camping is free and first-come, first-served. There are five pay campgrounds where you can get showers. For a list of free and pay sites, check bikewashington.org.

Lodging: A variety of lodging in towns along the canal range from $20 a night hostels to chain motels, bed and breakfasts and fine hotels. For a list, check bikewashington.org.

Food: There are plenty of convenience stores, grocery stores and restaurants in the towns along the canal. For a list, check bikewashington.org.

Shuttle services: For one-way trips along the canal, several shuttle services will pick you up in Washington and drop you off in Cumberland. We used Majestic Shuttle and paid $180, plus a tip, to transport three people, bikes and gear. It's a two- to three-hour drive, although traffic may affect that. For shuttle reservations, call Majestic Shuttle at (410) 521-3744.