TRIP REPORT Day 2 // Bikepacking the GAP and C&O Canal Trail in 4 Days | DC to Pittsburgh

Distance	Vertical Gain	Duration
86.3 Miles	974 Feet	9 Hours 22 Minutes

Waking out of a sleep, on a terribly uncomfortable couch, that only an entire day on a bike can put your body into, I was ready for another day in the saddle. But there were a few items to square away before we could pedal off towards Paw Paw, West Virginia nearly 90 miles away. Pat found himself carrying extra gear that was simply not useful, so he wandered down to the Post Office and shipped extra clothing and a pair of shoes. I was off in the other direction to do some food shopping in hopes of being much more prepared this day than the previous when I bonked from calorie deficit with only 20 miles left. Of course, in this small town, like the many others we would pass through, the options were limited and I found myself the two aisle of the gas station’s convenience store. Around and around I searched for anything remotely healthy, and settled on a ton of peanuts and some candy, a champion’s diet.

With most of the morning behind us, we finally threw a leg over our heavy bikes at 10:00 AM and realized, for the first of many times, how sore our butts were from the previous day’s ride. Somehow each bike seemed to have gained weight overnight as we climbed out of main street to get back to the trail. In a stark contrast, the C&O trail was completely empty of the crowds we’d become so accustomed to. And better yet, we found ourselves pedaling along an elevated section of towpath that passed alongside a slower section of the Potomac, which would have been great to wakeboard on its glassy surface. But beyond the excitement of a new trail under our tires, it was miles and miles of endless double-track below the green canopy that was just starting to change into their fall colors. Reminiscing on my time living in Connecticut, where countless hikes were spent trudging uphill for hours, and only then do you get a view from above the dense forest below. We often referred to the trails on the east coast as the green tunnel. Or in this case, green with hints of yellows, orange, and reds, but mostly green.

With over a hundred miles ridden, the aches and pains started to rear their heads. For myself, my left Achilles started to ache which lead me to shift my seat up and down in attempt to alleviate the loading of my left foot. Ben managed to alleviate most of his issues by getting his backpack off his back, and with the help of some ski straps, mount it between his handlebars. Getting the weight off your back is critical to enjoying any long rides. With that being said, Pat was up next to figure out his issues which primarily stemmed from a loose cleat on his left shoe. Once tightened, that fixed his knee and quad pain. Next up, was finally getting his backpack off his back which took nearly halfway into the second day to finally come to realization how much it was dragging his energy down. Realizing now, I think I was the only one with a nagging issue that kept up the entire ride, other than the soreness of our butts that only subsided when we got off the bikes or out of the saddle.

The scenery along the ride of the second day was much more rural and a turning back of the hands of time. Starting off with an elevated section of paved towpath near the Big Slackwater boat ramp, followed by one old bridge after another spanning the Potomac river. Along the river’s edge, we saw brick factories and other relics of America’s manufacturing era. Between the river and the canal, that we were still riding alongside of, though it was almost always dry, were the canal lockhouses. Though their utility is long gone, these colonial style homes of the old canal caretakers always have an aesthetic beauty of a much simpler time, one where Amazon packages are not found on every doorstep.

Our only big meal of the day came in the afternoon in the town of Hancock, where we climbed up the road to the “R Grill”, where burgers, beer, and sodas went down faster than you can imagine. In hopes to catch some of the Penn State football game, we sadly missed it and had to get the game’s updates from Pat who was following along with the play-by-play. And so we pedaled onto our stop for the night, Paw Paw, West Virginia. With full stomachs we found ourselves enjoying the relief of a paved section on the Western Maryland Rail Trail that ran parallel to the C&O Canal Trail for a dozen miles before reaching the best part of the day. With the daylight behind the hills of the valley we were riding through, we finally reached the infamous Paw Paw Tunnel.

This engineering marvel, spanning over half of a mile, cut through the hard shale mountain in order to avoid digging an additional 6 miles of tunnel. Line with 6 million bricks, this tunnel was expected to be completed in 4 years, and took nearly a decade beyond that to finally open for business, nearly bankrupting the C&O Canal company in the process. But now, it’s the quickest path through the mountain for bikers like us to enjoy a this work of art with our headlamps in the pitch black of the tunnel along the bumpy towpath. With the obligatory screams to achieve the most perfect echo, we slowly rolled our bikes out to the other side and on to the one horse town of Paw Paw in the dark, again.

This night’s accommodations were in the cozy Canal Cabins which were plenty for what we needed, with its two bunk beds, a small table, and a 14″ TV in the corner we turned on to catch all the college football highlights from the day. Starved after 9 hours on the bike, we quickly changed and hustled into town to grab anything to eat. To our surprise, Paw Paw had only a single gas station convenience store, a Dollar General that was closed, and a place called Big & Tiny’s Tavern with a dozen Side-by-sides and 4-Wheelers parked out front. From the outside, Big & Tiny’s looked more like a strip club than a bar, and immediately upon entry, we were met with piercing glares from all the locals that could tell we were not from around here. Maybe it was my space-suit-looking puffy jacket, or the fact all of our teeth, we’ll never know. And though they were famous for their wings, the safest thing on the menu seemed to be the beer, so we grabbed a few bottles to drink, then headed back to the convenience store across the street to load up on anything we could find to crave our hunger and prep us for what would be the longest ride of the trip the following day.