05/06/2025
GAP/C&O - the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Towpath
Day 7- Harper’s Ferry to Georgetown/DC
60 miles
The last day!!! We’ll roll into DC today hopefully by 2 pm. A lot of that will be dependent on a couple of factors…. First and foremost is the trail surface. If it’s like the trail after the Paw Paw Tunnel or the trail yesterday, we can count on 2 hours longer (10-11 mph). If it is a good paved surface, it will be smooth sailing!! The second factor is the weather….. I’d like to see sunny skies with a tailwind but at least for this part we’ll see. If we leave at 0830, finishing by 230 is a possibility!
I’ve been up since 3 am today…. Dreams woke me up and I just couldn’t get back to sleep. Sleeping in a hotel, or multiple hotels over the last week, is disruptive. Not to mention it isn’t my bed….. So I’ve been piddling around in the room…. All done packing, took a few minutes and tightened up all the loose screws on my bike (the vibrations from the trail really did a number on them), reloaded my gear bag on my bike…. I think I’m ready.
So now I’ll get dressed and load my bags in the truck before breakfast (0630). I’m ready to finish and get home! Along with everything else, I’m missing my “Partner in Adventure”, Gretchen! This hotel, deep in the mountains of WV, doesn’t have the best phone or internet connection so we really couldn’t chat last night. I’m sure tonight will be better once in DC.
Breakfast (@0615) was coffee (I’ve had one cup in my room already at 0400) and yogurt. The Quality Inn in Bolivar, WV is a really nice, clean, handy place. They are set up very well for Adventurers….. hikers on the Appalachian Trail as well as Hikers and Bikers on the GAP/C&O. Out behind the hotel they have a washing station to clean up bikes and they provided towels to dry off the bikes after washing. And the hotel itself is great…. The hallways are very wide making rolling bikes to the room a piece of cake. And inside the room it was spacious enough to easily store bikes, even my Trike!!
While we were at breakfast we decided on what we’d do today. Since we had to retrace our steps back to the Trail, we decided we’d make things a little easier. We’d load the bikes in the pick up and avoid the bridge and staircase. It added a half mile to our ride but it avoided any damage or injury on the staircase.
We also decided we’d do the cycling a bit different. Craig decided not to ride today to rest his foot…. Steve and Nick would ride the second half from White’s Ferry to DC. I was originally going to ride the whole way but the guys “strongly encouraged” me to take one half or the ride today off. Apparently I was the only one who had ridden every mile to this point. So at White’s Ferry I packed it in and rode with Craig back to DC to turn in bikes.
The bike office was right by the US Navy Memorial between Pennsylvania and D Street NW so it felt a little like home. We got one bike turned in about noon then the other 3 bikes were turned in at 2 pm.
At that point, everyone gathered their bags and we started off on our way…. Craig and Nick were heading to San Antonio, Kyle was heading for Denver, Steve was going to visit family in the DC area and Me…. I was headed to Fairfax to visit a friend before heading on to Iowa.
It was a great ride on the GAP/C&O Towpath…. 334 miles in total. I did 294 miles. It was quite the adventure, in many ways! I hope you all enjoyed reading about this trip….. if you want to do this sometime, buy me a beer and I’ll tell you what to do and what to avoid.
