65: little richard's bumpersticker, quicksand, rock formations, 100% date, mudfest, the batty indigo, 40-foot turtle, nerd deer, telegraph poles, burly burl, lost cap, the pocked paw paw, bus cabin, colin, rode hard & put away wet

June 16, 2025

Hancock to Paw Paw

There's only one restaurant open in Hancock this morning, so I rode to Hardee’s and ordered three scrambled eggs and some milk. They were unexpectedly delicious, so I got two more eggs and more milk. Little did I know how much I'd need it later.

My original plan was to camp at least every other night on the C&O. With the expectation of rain every day and, even more so, the ratio of mosquitoes to Mark at 10,000:1, that plan was scrapped.

berries along the way, but I'm not sure what kind... red, I think.

I'm not which of these three things is going on in this picture: either they're legless cows, they're melting, or it's quicksand. I feel somewhat confident it's the latter.

Occasionally, I could see the C&O towpath from the Western Maryland Rail Trail.

There was another of these structures along the way, maybe something prior to the Rail Trail? For some odd reason, it has a pipe for ventilation.

Since I was just about the only idiot out riding today, the deer felt much bolder.

I stopped to take some pictures of the rocks along the path. I don't know what kind of stone it is, but the formations were stunning.

Did it form vertically? Or was it formed horizontally, with sediment, then pushed vertically by some kind of land movement?

When I saw three women on the side of the trail I pulled over to make sure everything was okay, as I always do when someone has stopped. We shared road conditions before parting in opposite directions. Even after two applications of 45% DEET I left with four more bites.

It was at that point that I texted Heather: "bring 100% DEET." Siri misinterpreted me and texted "bring 100% date."

After 17 glorious miles on the Western Maryland Rail Trail I was routed back to the C&O canal towpath.

Once back on the C&O, the trail became a mudfest. You'll see a lot of muddy trail pictures today, because I saw a lot of muddy trails.

This is about the point where I would've traveled through the Indigo Tunnel had it been open. The Western Maryland Railway blasted a tunnel through the mountain, cutting off a large bend in the river and eliminating the need to lay more than a mile of track. The Indigo tunnel, at 4,350 feet, is the longest on the towpath, and longer than the upcoming Paw Paw Tunnel by 1,232 feet.

Like I said, the Indigo Tunnel is closed, and for a reason I can really get behind. Why? Because there are eight different species of bats living in the Indigo Tunnel, and every single one of the tens of thousands of bats living there can eat more than a thousand mosquitoes an hour during the summer. Unfortunately, the bat population has been declining for many years because of a disease called White Nose Syndrome, a fungal infection rapidly spreading and decimating hibernating bat colonies in the eastern United States. Closing the tunnel is one way to protect them, and I honestly can't think of a more sound reason.

I'm estimating this guy to be at least forty feet tall, because that tree in the left center is about 25-30 feet tall.

It was really slow going because my tires kept slipping and sliding. I was squeezing the handlebars like a politician gripping a coin, and by the end of the day I needed a crowbar to pry them off. A loose grip or a lapse in attentiveness, even for a second, would've resulted in a face full of mud.

This was taken one second before he gracefully bounded away. Just once, I'd like to see a deer trip for no reason. It would reassure me that there are nerd deer.

I saw very few cyclists today. It was mostly an isolated ride.

Some people love riding in the mud. And who wouldn't want to? ....slipping along, completely out of control and knowing if you fall you’re never going to get all the mud off. People will think you have vitiligo for months, and you’ll still be noticing dried flecks of black dandruff falling off your head at your granddaughter’s graduation.

Very old telephone poles appear at regular intervals just off the trail, many of them now becoming almost invisible as they blend in with the forest which has grown up around them.

I googled to see how old they are, and it appears they were most likely placed in the 1930s to the 1950s as part of the telegraph and telephone infrastructure that supported communication along the canal.

Stopping for a picture around Lock 61, I refilled my front water bottle from the larger one on the seat tube. I always rest the cap on the handlebar mount, but this time I forgot to replace it and pedaled off. I didn't notice it for about a mile and a half and, even though I was really fatigued by that point, I turned around in order to search for it. Unfortunately, I never found it. That's when I realized how tired I was, because that's not the kind of thing I do unless I'm exhausted.

The scenery truly is beautiful, regardless of the mud and bugs.

There's no way I could safely pedal through the Paw Paw tunnel. The floor was not only uneven, but pocked and slippery. If my handlebars bump the wall, down I go. If my handlebars bump the wooden rail, down I go. On the right side of the railing is a short fall to some water the color of shiny tar. I used my bike like a scooter, standing on the right pedal and pushing myself along with my left leg.

The Paw Paw Tunnel is 3,118 feet long, slightly less than 0.6 miles (~0.95 km).

It's the second longest tunnel on the towpath, and took much longer to complete than any of the others because of labor disputes. “Disputes” is a euphemistic term when you consider that the two groups, Irish and German immigrants, brawled with shovels, pickaxes, and hammers, to the point of literally destroying entire saloons.

Their employers played the two groups against each other in order to stave off strikes and wage increases, but the plan backfired and the tunnel took a staggering fourteen years to build. For comparison, the Indigo Tunnel, which is longer, took two years to complete.

Having crossed the Potomac, I'm now on the road to Paw Paw and almost done riding for the day.

When I arrived in Paw Paw I was beat, and after buying an ice cream sandwich at the convenience store I plopped down on the ground in front of the store like a sack of wet mud. My brain was soggy, and I was exhausted.

In spite of the short distance, this was possibly the toughest day I've experienced since I started riding. I was concentrating on not slipping in the mud and didn't realize that I hadn't eaten anything, or even stopped other than to take a few pictures here and there, until I'd been in the saddle for more than three hours. (And I missed seeing a lot of things because I was concentrating on the trail) Between not eating, not getting quite enough sleep, and poor trail conditions, I looked like I'd been, as they say in Texas, "rode hard and put away wet."

I sat there for about twenty minutes gazing at my navel before finally gathering enough strength to regroup. I bought a few items to take to my lodgings (mostly empty calories) and pedaled the quarter mile to settle in.

In my fatigue, I kept drinking from my lidless water bottle. I didn't even think about the fact that contaminated mud could easily have splashed up into it while I was riding. We'll see what happens....

This was a really good day to have fenders, an internally-geared hub instead of a derailleur, and a belt drive instead of a chain. There was a water hose and towels at the cabins so I was able to wash everything down.

Canal Cabins has four cabins plus where I stayed. There were showers, picnic tables, and a place to hose down my bike.

My place, the bus, had slightly more square feet than the rest.

I met Colin while I was hosing off my bike. He's traveling the canal with his kids (bringing them up right in my opinion) and has done the C&O five times. He noted that this is by far the worst he's ever seen it.

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Today's ride: 35 miles (56 km)
Total: 1,722 miles (2,771 km)

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