November 8, 1997
Day Two: Hancock to Harpers Ferry – 62 miles
Happy Detours and Not So Happy Ones
The next morning Debbie cooked up eggs, sausage and biscuits for us, and we hit the road at about 8am. We had to climb a short hill on 144 outside the Inn, but then had a nice downhill glide back into Hancock. Harper's Ferry was 65 miles away.
In Hancock, we caught therecently paved Western Maryland Rail Trail as a break from the Towpath’s corrugated surface – it was fantastic. For the next ten miles we enjoyed this beautiful new trail, which ends at Big Pool, just short of Fort Frederick park. At the end we caught up with Da Boyz again, and they recommended a road route around Williamsport to avoid the detour from mile 84-88 where the Towpath is unusable for bikes. Update: that detour from mile 84-88 is no longer required, they finally finished the repair work on the Towpath. It is a beautiful section to ride.
From the end of the rail trail back to the Towpath at Ft. Frederick we had a few short but steep hills to climb, and Carole learned why pannier weight does matter on a bike.
We caught up with Da Boyz once again just outside Williamsport, where the Towpath gets very rough – and completely leaf covered to boot. The good news was that it had not rained recently - this section can be very muddy.
I had my first (and amazingly only) flat, so I put on a new tube and swore never to do the Towpath on 35mm tires again. We pulled into Williamsport at the 25-mile mark, stopped at a bike shop to pick up another tube and grabbed some sandwiches from Sheetz, using the famous Sheetz sub kiosks to enter our orders. We packed the food on the bikes to eat later, as it was only about 1045 am.
Taking Da Boyz’ recommendation, we took Rt. 68 out of Williamsport to 63 to Downsville, and then Dam 4 Road to mile 84 on the Towpath, where the ridable part of the Towpath picks up again. By doing this we saved about 3 miles of riding, but missed a nice section of the Towpath from mile 99 to 88. However, more importantly we swapped 11 miles of bumps for 8 miles of smooth pavement, with short, sharp uphills and blessed downhills. At Dam 4 we laid out in the sun and ate our sandwiches. We still had 23 miles to go to reach Harper's Ferry.
Update: the Towpath downstream from Williamsport had been closed since it was damaged by Hurricane Agnes in 1972. The renovations have been completed and the detour is no longer necessary - the repaired stretch is awesome, don't miss it.
The quality of the Towpath over this section varied from horrible and rocky to smooth and pleasurable. It seemed liked every time Carole mentioned how nice the surface was it changed to leaf-covered and bumpy. There are many isolated sections between Williamsport and Antietam and anytime we saw someone we knew we were nearing an access point. From Antietam to Harper’s Ferry the Towpath is in pretty good shape, and given the beautiful weather (temperature was in the high 60s) we began to see more and more people.
We reached mile 61 and the Harpers Ferry footbridge at about 4pm and began the stretch that almost ended our marriage. The first issue was schlepping the loaded bikes up the circular metal staircase from Towpath up to the top of the footbridge - fun after 60+ miles!
I had tried to get reservations at the Hilltop House but they were full, so we ended up at another Harper's Ferry “inn” – the Comfort Inn. The major bonus of staying there is not having to climb up the dreaded High Street hill. According to the map, the Comfort Inn was located right where Shendandoah Street intersects with 340, only a few feet higher than Harper's Ferry National Park. I thought we were golden.
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After carrying our loaded bikes up the stairwell to get on the foot bridge over the Potomac, fighting our way through crowds of tourists, we cycled up Shenandoah Street towards Rt. 340,where we found out that the National Park Service had conveniently closed the old entrance and created a new road up a huge hill to a new visitors' parking center a few miles up 340. We pushed the bikes slooowly up this hill while Carole stared daggers at me. When we reached 340, there was a steep downhill back towards Harper's Ferry and a steep uphill to the left towards Charlestown. Of course, I lead us to the left while, of course, the Comfort Inn was to the right.At the top of the hill, there was no Comfort Inn to be found but there was a Cliffside Inn. I called the Comfort Inn to cancel our reservations as Carole swore she would strangle me with a bungee cord if she had to get back on that bike, but the friendly folks at the Inn reminded me that it was too late to cancel and that we were only 1 mile away, all downhill.
Of course, they didn’t mention that construction took away the 340 shoulder, but after a short, very scary ride downhill we reached the Comfort Inn at around 5pm and collapsed. We ordered decent pizza and salad from Godfathers delivery, pigged out, watched cable TV and zonked.
Today's ride: 62 miles (100 km)
Total: 125 miles (201 km)
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