Day 4 - May 7 - Little Orleans to Cumberland - Two Old Guys Take On A Continent

May 7, 2023

Day 4 - May 7 - Little Orleans to Cumberland

Mudfest

John’s Story

Much warmer this morning. 53 degrees. Not much dew. I had a much better sleep last night than the last two camping night

Rescued the iPad and Ed’s power bank from Brent camping in the RV near us. We left them charging off his camper overnight. The iPad was at 1% power last night when I finished entering my part of the journal. With the thought of having to push over the Paw Paw Tunnel bypass trail today with our loaded bikes, I thought we might want to talk to Brent a little more about preplanning since he’s a funeral director. More Paw Paw talk later.

Found a hitchhiker on my handlebar bag early this morning. That reminds me that today all over the place were beautiful black butterflies, I wish I had pictures. I think one of them might have been a swallowtail of some sort.

Trail conditions were variable again today, but things settled into a mud-based routine. There was just mud. There was mud with water. There was water without mud. There was gravel with mud. There was gravel with mud and water. There was gravel with water and no mud. There was gravel with mud in the water. What we saw very little of was gravel without mud or water.

All the way to the Paw Paw Tunnel we fantasized about the shuttle that would carry us to the top of the bypass trail so we would only have to slide down the other side. Fantasize is the operative word. The fine print says the shuttle operates when work is ongoing. Today is Sunday. No work was ongoing. No shuttle.

OK, the shuttle should be here somewhere, right?

Wrong. We started up the tunnel bypass trail. It didn’t seem so bad at first. Even Ed, who has been talking for several days about how he was going to have to break down his bike into panniers and chassis to make two trips up the hill started up the incline with confidence.

The National Park Service website says that this side of ridge rises on average one foot for each 11.5 feet of instance. Do the math, that’s still pretty steep. On average. But that average is made up of steeper and less steep sections. The steeper sections (plenty of them) had to be 15%-20% grade, or so I thought.

And the icing on the cake? It was mud. Amidst much whimpering and heavy breathing we made it to the top. The downgrade actually looked rideable, even though the NPS says it’s the steeper side, and that bikes must be walked. Our motto: “Until we see a rock, we roll!” So we started down riding carefully. After a mile or so we came to an intersection that was marked showing that we had completely missed our turn to go on the proper downhill back to the towpath. Debate ensued. Google maps was consulted. We decided to continue in the direction we were headed, which would take us downhill along a creek to a highway that would take us to the towpath. Well, if you’ll look at the graphic above, you’ll see it took us down indeed, but made us climb another steep hill to get where we wanted to be. I still think it was the lesser of two evils compared to walking the bikes down the actual bypass trail. At least we were on smooth asphalt, even if there was heavy traffic and a steep hill in the way.

We found our way to the Paw Paw Tunnel campground, where we met Patrick and Uli emerging from the actual bypass trail, having pushed up the other side with unloaded road bikes. Uli in particular could not believe we had pushed our loaded bikes up the same hill they had just climbed.

Patrick and Uli posing with the hardbodies. Uli came from Germany just to do this ride. Turns out they are on the same route we are, the TransAm Eastern Express. Unless they get ahead of us we may see them again.

How could Patrick and Uli get ahead of us you ask? They are riding unloaded on road bikes with a support van following them. I asked Patrick to adopt me.

Once we left this spot I turned back to go take a peek at Paw Paw Tunnel. Ed did not follow me for reasons which I’m sure he will explain in his portion of today’s journal.

Looking from the south end of the tunnel. I’m pretty sure we would’ve had to walk our bikes through had we not had the detour.

It took me about an hour of furious peddling to catch up with Ed, but there was some pretty scenery along the way.

Yeah, just another lock, but quite a scenic one.

Not long after I caught up to Ed, the weatherman’s forecast came to pass, and it started raining. That made riding on the muddy path even more exciting. A number of times each of us lost traction and slid sideways a bit here and there in the newly remobilized mud.

At one point Ed came to a pretty quick stop when he bogged down in the mud, and I was following him too closely to stop in time. I came to a stop right next to him on the side of the path next to the canal. It was either fall to the right into the canal, or fall to the left into Ed. I fell to the left. Then Ed fell to the right on top of me. It took a few moments to extricate me from the pileup as two loaded touring bikes were laying on top of me. I wish we had a video of that. I was wise enough to back off more after that.

We finally made it to Cumberland, Maryland. Here the C&O Canal intersects with the Great Allegheny Passage rail trail (GAP), which we will be riding on tomorrow.

Crossing the streams. Note the big hills in the background. More reminder of what we are trying to avoid in the Appalachians.

We hid from the rain under an I-68 overpass long enough to get our bearings and discover that the YMCA where we had planned to camp is closed. We found that the least expensive hotel in the area was only a quarter of a mile away. So we find ourselves tonight at the Ramada. Quite convenient since we need to dry out.

Ed’s Story

John, as eloquent as he is pretty much covered most of it.

Once again we were on double track the whole way. I’m not sure what I expected at Paw Paw detour but it was pretty bad. With my recumbent and all the weight in the back it was very slow going…go and stop the whole way.

There is a reason I did not stay and chat or visit the tunnel. I got a bug bite last night at camp.

I don’t know what bit me but it really decided to swell up. My priority was to get to an urgent care.

We finally got to the hotel, cleaned up, and lo and behold the only open urgent care was on lock down…so it was off to the emergency room. No cabs were running so I walked about 2 miles. Later my wife mentioned Uber…duh.

After waiting about 2 hours , I’ve had blood drawn, an intravenous antibiotic, and should be getting a prescription.

Warning - not for the faint of heart.

Well they finally released me with a prescription to fill in the morning. Need to watch and if gets worse, see another Dr.

To make matters worse, there are no Ubers here so I had to walk back. Needless to say, I’m tired.

Until tomorrow, happy biking.

Today's ride: 47 miles (76 km)
Total: 3,860 miles (6,212 km)

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Ronald WoodsTough luck on the medical hassle!! Too early in the trip for that! Pesky spider maybe?
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1 year ago

Ed ChimahuskyTo Ronald WoodsUnknown- as long as spider don’t coming out of it I’ll be happy
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1 year ago

Ronald WoodsHahaha you are not in Africa so you are likely safe there. Spiders can have nasty filthy fangs from attacking nasty filthy insects. I’ve had a few bites I had to get medical attention with. One recently after a fishing trip.
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1 year ago