This year, I intend to hike the entire C&O Canal Towpath, starting at mile 0 and working my way northwest to mile 184.5. The idea is to do it in order, to get a sense of how it changes along the route.
I started yesterday at the Foggy Bottom-GWU Metro stop and walked to mile 0 in Georgetown. After snapping a photo at the mile marker, I then had to walk to the start of the towpath - promptly to be greeted with detour signs. Not auspicious, perhaps, but any official detour counts, and I've walked that section before.
Just before Key Bridge, the detour ended, and I looked out on a lumpy blanket of ice. Two weeks of snow had compacted rather than melted. I had brought an old pair of traction devices with me, which kept me from sliding about. The ice kept most folks away; it was odd to have the trail nearly to myself on a nice weekend day. It was even odder where the towpath runs parallel to the Capital Crescent Trail, and not ten feet away there were crowds.
Not far past the DC border is mile marker 5. If it had been any other day of the week, I could have gone another five miles and caught a bus back to the Metro, but it doesn't run on Sundays. Instead, I crossed the Clara Barton on a pedestrian bridge and took a woods trail uphill to the Capital Crescent Trail, following it back to Foggy Bottom. My total mileage was 12 miles, although only five were on the C&O.
No comments:
Post a Comment