I lay in the hammock yesterday evening, reading Iain Banks’ absorbing Look to Windward on my Kindle as the light slowly faded and the stars reluctantly took up their positions. After a while I closed my book and found myself thinking that I couldn’t remember a time when I had been camping in such a solitary fashion. Sure, I’ve camped on my own plenty of times before, but I couldn’t recall an instance where there had not been people in the vicinity. Even the couple of times I had camped in Joshua Tree there had still been people relatively nearby. But out here on the trail I have had three camp sites entirely to myself. There has been no one else around me for miles in either direction. Yet I’ve also been conscious of the fact there are numerous access points to the trail adjoining small towns, each populated, no doubt, by their share of the young, the bored, and the restless. It’s funny, when you have a few people in your immediate vicinity, people are generally a source of comfort. When you have no one in your immediate vicinity, people are a source of unease, and even a threat.
But the notable thing about this ride is that because of the area the trail traverses, you are never really away from evidence of the presence of people. Every camp site I have stayed at has been invaded by the sound of trains, sometimes in startling proximity–my first night on the GAP–or occasionally in the distance or just across the river. Several of the camping spots I passed yesterday faced long frontages of river that were lined on the other side with holiday homes, docks, and flotillas of power boats. Last night, even from the isolation of the Big Woods site, well back from the trail, there were lights across the river that I assumed belonged to a jetty but that I couldn’t make out clearly. Properly disposed, I could easily have spun a story straight out of either Tom Clancy or Supernatural, depending on my mood and creativity.
A droite!
I deliberately adopted a lazier start to the day, since I knew it was going to be a shorter mileage day. While the riding was a little rough to start with, once I reached Shepherdstown the surface turned into this amazing grey hardpack that would last all the way to White’s Ferry, a little bit less than 40 miles outside DC. This stuff is amazing! It is almost like riding on asphalt and I made very good time.
Not that I was rushing. This is the part that I think of as the “historic corridor” portion of the trail even though, of course, there is history all along the trail (and more there if someone would actually do some research and signage). This portion passes through or near some well-known places: the Antietam battlefield near Sharpsburg, Harper’s Ferry, and Shepherdstown (a fun and quirky town where many of the Confederate dead from Antietam are buried; as with many of the “national” battlefield cemeteries including Gettysburg, the one at Antietam was reserved only for the Union dead).
The canal is overgrown for large portions of this section, with ruins of mills and small manufactories visible in the woods.
The population density on this part of the trail gradually rose, with many people using the trail for exercise. Around Harper’s Ferry the trail became quite crowded, even on a weekday. At one point I found myself coming up behind a large gaggle of people sprawling across the trail near the Harper’s Ferry rail bridge; recognizing French, I called out “A droite,” they dutifully, and almost instinctively moved to the side and I continued on my way.
Along this part of the trail the remaining lock keeper house start to look better cared for, and a couple even sported natty paint jobs, such as this one near Brunswick..
Speaking of Brunswick, I made an extended stopover there to grab a few supplies and encountered quite possibly the friendliest convenience store owner in the nation. She did everything but give me an item by item guided tour of the shelves. I also stopped for coffee at Beans in the Belfry, a coffee shop in a converted church. Barely modified inside, the space was cavernous, the numerous tables, mostly now empty, dwarfed by the space. The place still had the original stained glass windows and what looked like a tin ceiling, although it was so distant that it was hard to tell. There was the requisite bearded slow-as-molasses barista, a skinny midriff baring magenta-haired woman making the food, and a lot of bikes outside. All as it should be.
Flight Path
Despite the slow pace I was still at my camp site, Indian Flats, by two. This was a large site and one of the few along this stretch not immediately–and I mean immediately—adjacent to the rail line. It was one of the large sites, and I was able to grab a portion set well back and off the side:
It was only after I had set up the tent and the hammock and spent a considerable portion of the afternoon in the latter that the major drawback with the site became apparent. There was no handle on the water pump. With a resigned air I hauled my bike back up the bank and readied myself to set off for the 4.5 mile ride to the next camp site down the line. I passed by a group of three cyclists who had arrived earlier; I knew they had seen the broken handle, so I asked them if they wanted me to get some water for them as well. But they were carrying a lot of bottled water and generously gifted me an entire liter which I knew would probably get me through the night and morning.
I was settling back into my hammock and congratulating myself on having avoided one of the sites along this stretch that are, quite literally, just across the canal from the railway. I had barely finished accepting these hearty congratulations on behalf of myself when I heard a distant roar that grew progressively louder. It was then that I realized I was camped right under one of the approach paths for the Dulles airport, and it was now rush hour. The river itself played host to the intermittent grumble or snarl–depending on throttle level–of powerboats well into the night, overlaid with a smattering of voices that could have been fishermen, or drug runners, or people disposing of bodies for all I knew. There were also periods filled with indeterminate bangings and thumpings that could have been the product of a shunting yard nearby or, in the other direction, strange goings on at the Washe Rd. Powerplant. This entire trip has been one of privacy and seclusion, accompanied by near constant intrusive reminders of the World.
But these types of adventures are never really about the reminders of how trapped you are by the world, but rather the moments where you get taken to another place entirely. As the sun set and the light faded I walked down to the water’s edge. The river here is wide, and deceptively slow moving. The air was momentarily still, and I watched a single rower make their slow way upstream, a needle wake tracing the surface of the water and the silhouette of the power plant in the background. Life in slow motion.
Alchemy 