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50@50 – The Great Allegheny Passage, MD, PA

The 135 mile Great Allegheny Passage trail was completely unknown to me when I arrived in the Cumberland Visitor Center. Seen as the extension of the C & O canal towpath, it is part of the larger network of hiking/biking trails called the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail. Most of the trail is nearly level, much of it reclaimed from old railroad lines.[1]

The Allegheny Mountains are believed be named after the The Alligewi, an Eastern Woodland people, who were known for building mounds, fortifications and entrenchments (many of which still remain.)[2] According to a French Map,

“Carte de L’AMERICQVE Corrigce, et augmentre, dessus toutes les aultres cydeuant, from 1671, the “Shatteras” (Tutelo) occupied the Ouasioto (Cumberland) Mountains[3], but trails through the Alleghenies had been used for trade and hunting (territorial conflict), and migration for hundreds of years, used by the Iroquois-Huron peoples, the Shawnee, coastal tribes, and others.[4]

(Alleghenies lower center portion)

I was so annoyed that my research had somehow missed this magnificent hiking opportunity![5] I hiked about only two easy paved miles and back adjacent to the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad from the Cumberland Station. I would have loved to explore much more of it, but my presence was required in Pittsburgh that afternoon.  Unlike my lonely trek on the C & O towpath, this urban section of the trail buzzed with local activity.  I encountered mostly walkers and bikers and a lone backpacker. Running along a myriad of streams and rivers, the passage connect the rural communities of the Laurel Highland of Southern Pennsylvania.

I continued northwest through this landscape, driving along Highway 40, the National Road begun in 1806. A few days later, I meandered south through the Laurel Highlands in falling water (ha, ha – bad joke.  Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water is located near the Great Allegheny Passage) on some of the small roads that intersect this trail.  The landscape feels timeless, yet the number of 18^th and early 19^th century sites and villages also make this landscape feel quite rooted.