The train has left the station

Hiking in the clouds....and in the rain they carry

Today, after yesterday's ten mile warm up, I hiked fifteen miles in the rain from Frostburg to Cumberland along the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad right of way. It was wet but beautiful, and everyone on the trail except me was on a bike. The clouds came down to meet us.

And the view of the the Allegheny escarpment in the Cumberland Narrows, Maryland's Cumberland Gap, was quite impressive and made clear what early American settlers were up against in moving over the Allegheny mountains.

More photos here.

Cumberland Connection

The Western Maryland Railroad station in  Cumberland, MD. This spot in The Queen City is where the C&O Canal, The B&O/CSX RR and the Great Allegheny Passage rail trail meet at the confluence of the Potomac River and Wills Creek, one of five gaps allowing passage over the Allegheny Mountain range, the other Cumberland Gap. It is also where during the French and Indian War British General Braddock, with his aide, Colonel George Washington,  marshaled his forces at Fort Cumberland before attacking the French at Fort Duqusne, now Pittsburgh. Braddock suffered fatal wounds when his force was ambushed en route to Fort Duquesne. George Washington assumed command. In 1794 President Washington again used Cumberland as a staging area before he marched into Pennsylvania as Commander in Chief of an American army to suppress The Whiskey Rebellion on the western frontier of the new nation. More photos here.