Editor’s note: Ken Hastings of Mechanicsville is a regular contributor to TheBAYNET.com.  He often writes about yellow perch, the Chesapeake Bay and Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources.  Here, Hastings shares his journal from a 300-mile bike trip across the Great Allegheneny Passage.

The Great Allegheny Passage is a network of rail trails connecting Pittsburgh, Pa., with the C&O Canal towpath in Cumberland, Md. If you like the idea of a more than 300-mile bicycle trip through history and fabulous scenery, making the entire trip to Washington, DC might just be an adventure you won’t soon forget. My trip this past summer certainly ranks near the top for me.

 
 Ken Hastings travels Alleghany Pass-
age, starting in McKeesport, Pa.

The adventure started off well before sunrise on a Sunday. My son, Ray, his friend, Karen, and I packed my Sequoia with camping gear, food, clothes, two bike trailers, etc. We loaded three bikes on the rack and started the five-hour trip to McKeesport, Pa.

Yes, I know the trail Web site says the trail starts in Pittsburgh but that is still just a dream. McKeesport is the right place to start. My wife kissed me goodbye with a promise to meet us in Georgetown at mile zero of the C&O Canal the following Friday evening.

The first couple of miles aren’t much to write home about – just streets, traffic, industrial parks and hills but the trail is well marked. Then it levels out on a mostly packed cinder surface (some parts are actually paved) through fields and woods following the valleys of various rivers with names like Monongahela and Youghiogheny.

Along the way, the trail goes past historic old towns, across abandoned railroad trestles and viaducts and through tunnels once filled with the smoke from steam engines. For much of the trip, the rivers are in full view, and you can gage the grade by how high you are above the river. If you are going upstream and still keep gaining in altitude, you are climbing faster than the water is falling, but your quads will tell you first.

The only real danger is that you will spend too much time gawking at the fantastic scenery and not enough on keeping your bike on the trail.

We had planned to make 60 miles most days. That doesn’t sound too challenging – do the math – 60 miles in 10 hours is only six miles per hour. However, even though we started breaking camp in the dark each morning, we had trouble making more than 20 miles by noon. The reason – too much gawking!!

Then, we had to stand on the pedals to get to our next camp site in time to set up camp again, and we couldn’t enjoy some really neat places as much as we would have liked. Sixty miles is too much – 40 would be better but maybe still too much.

The Pennsylvania highlands have a charm all their own. The rivers follow serpentine routes between steep hills, and the rail bed was carved out of the rocky banks covered with mountain laurel under a canopy of forest. For miles, the silence is broken only by the swishing noise of the tires on the dusty surface of the trail and you kind of get zoned out. Suddenly, you realize there is something else on YOUR trail – like a deer or flock of wild turkeys.

We took a couple of scenic detours. When we reached Ohiopyle (big white wat