After 11 months off from my C&O quest, I finally returned to the trail. I had the pretty reasonable goal of finishing the remaining 40 miles on a four-day backpacking trip.
However, the weather had other ideas. It was clear that day three would be 24 hours of steady rain, as a tropical depression made its way north. Rides are difficult to find along that part of the trail (and quite expensive), so instead of progressing for two days, I did a one day out-and-back.
I started at Little Orleans, where I left off last November, and followed the WMRT west. There are new signs along the WMRT stating there is "no safe connection" to the C&O at "the terminus." Okay, but 50 feet before the terminus, there is a public, low-traffic road (it literally only goes to a PATC cabin), and an unmaintained but only 20-foot long trail connecting the road to the C&O. It doesn't take a wanton disregard of safety to do it.
This popped me out between mile markers 143 and 144. From there I headed onward - I hesitate to say "west," as that section of trail snakes north and south and only vaguely gestures at heading west.
There are few major sites along the way. The trail crosses Kasecamp Road, which went from notoriously rough before last year's floods to nearly impassible. The section I could see looked remarkably good, though, and there was a roadwork sign.
I stopped just before Paw Paw, at the Sorrel Ridge campsite. Surprisingly, I had the campground entirely to myself, and it is a large one.
The next morning, I chatted with some canoers who had camped nearly and came over to use the table and water pump.
Those water pumps by the way - dreadful. It took me 40 strokes to prime it. Leave it for even a minute, and you have to start all over again. If I ever start a functional fitness gym, I'll install one for building strong arms and backs.
My trip back the second day was uneventful, and I got home with daylight to spare.
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