GAP - C&O Canal - Day 5

 Friday, 16 October 2020

Cumberland to Little Orleans, 44 miles

Today was forecast to be cold and rainy. We got lucky. Cool it definitely was (50°s), but the rain was very light -- mostly drizzle and mist. This was our first day on the canal towpath, and we were introduced to locks, aqueducts, and the one tunnel on the path.

75 locks raise the canal a total of 600 ft. That makes each lock an 8-ft rise. Each lock, or set of locks, has a lock house to house the workers that operated the locks. Sometimes there was just a stone foundation remaining. Closer to Washington, a few of the lock houses are available for overnight stays - bring your own bedding, food, and cooking equipment.

Typical canal scenery. Canal on the left (here with water in it, many times it was swampy or filled-in), towpath in the middle, Potomac River on the right.

Another towpath scene. This time the canal is merely a depression running along the towpath. It's interesting to note that all the trees between the canal and the towpath must be less than 100 years old - the canal was in use until 1924, when yet another flood was the final straw that forced it to be abandoned.

Who knew that a canal could go through a tunnel? This is the 3118 ft long Paw Paw Tunnel that bypasses 5 miles of river bends. The towpath is a narrow ledge alongside the canal. Fortunately, today it has a fence for safety.

Inside the Paw Paw Tunnel. It's lined with 6 million bricks!

One of several surveying benchmarks in the tunnel wall. Light provided by Lon's phone.

The eastern end of the tunnel.

After exiting the tunnel, the path continues through an open rock cut on a cantilevered boardwalk.

At the end of the boardwalk, part of the facing rock wall has collapsed into the canal.

The path through the rock cut is quite narrow.

In addition to the tunnel, the canal traverses several aqueducts. The upper end of the path has smaller aqueducts, such as this one over Fifteenmile Creek. In the lower part of the path, approaching Washington, the aqueducts are longer and go over full-sized rivers.

The view from Town Hill Overlook "near" Little Orleans, Maryland. This was across the road from our night's B&B (the Town Hill Inn), which was a 7-mile shuttle ride from the towpath. (And serves a spectacular breakfast - truly "the best breakfast on the trail".)