Date: 2010-11-19
From: Ed Garvey Shelter

To: Ridge past Harpers Ferry
Miles today: 9.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Got hiking 9:30ish- took our first break at Weverton Cliffs- this might be one of my favorite views on the AT- at least in the Mid Atlantic. It features a sweeping view of a bend of the Potomac River and there are railroad tracks curving along the bank. There was a train passing by while we were up there. Despite this being Maryland, you can't see hardly any signs of civilization and the rock outcrop is a picturesque set of fins at at a 30 degree angle or so. There are two bands of rocks across the river that make two sets of rapids.        The trees in the river valley still have a fair amount of leaves on them and that also made for a great picture. While there, I called my friend Meghan from high school who lives in Harpers Ferry to arrange a meeting for lunch at 1pm . We dropped down off the ridge after Weverton Cliffs and crossed the railroad tracks and a road. If I lived near here, it'd be a great short hike up to Weverton- pretty steep incline for a good workout- nice view for a payoff. I'd do it every day after work         Once we dropped down, the trail joined the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park- following the towpath between the canal and the Potomac River. it was a gorgeous day- as long as you kept moving. Three miles later, we were crossing the bridge into Harpers Ferry- also a national historic park with many monuments as this town at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenendoah Rivers was a major tactical target. Now its also the "pyschological" halfway point of the trail and home to the headquarters of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.         In 2001, coming the other way, I opted to hike through the town instead of the trail, this time I intended to hike the trail, but we missed the turn off uphill, so we walked along this other road along the river until we came to another trail that headed VERY steeply uphill, but reconnected us with the AT shortly before the side trail to the ATC. This all was after meeting Meghan and her son Tristan for lunch. I hadn't seen her since college- we were casual friends in high school and then we went to the same college, occasionally seeing each other around campus. She moved out to the east coast a few years after college and met her husband who is an air traffic controller. She has the same extremely sarcastic sense of humor I remember, her 3 yo son Tristan was pretty well behaved and we had a great time at a mediocre lunch place.         After lunch we hiked to the ATC office- a few minutes after we walked in, another hiker came in off the trail- just having finished the whole trail. Smokey's Friend started the trail at HF last year and hiked south to Springer with the sobo crowd, this year he started at Katahdin and hiked south to here. There was another guy there who had hiked in 2002 , and the guy working there had hiked in 2003- so we had 3 consecutive years represented to toast the guy - the ATC brings out stemware and a bottle of sparkling cider for anyone who finishes at HF. I thought the guy working there looked familar, but Jasper recognized him- "Hey you're Poptart- aren't you!" He won the Hiker Talent Show in 2007, when I took Jasper to his first Trail Days- he did a long wonderful hilarious poem about how he got his trail name.         Laurie Pottegier also recognized my face- I've seen her at multiple hiker gatherings over the years, plus I had some interaction with her when I worked for the ATC in 2002. We went through our drop and ditched a bunch of food in the hiker box since we got here a couple days later than planned. I would have liked to have gone through the books of hiker pictures- I did quickly go through 2001's, but I wanted to find Dirty Bird's picture from 03, Numskull and NITRO from 2004, plus go through this year's to see our friends. There just wasn't enough time. We kept them late as it was- we ended up having to have our picture taken inside because it was dark outside already. We are section hikers 331 and 332 for 2010.         We finally hiked out and retraced our steps to the AT and followed the blazes across the bridge across the Shenendoah. It was sunset and the light was shining over the river's mirror like surface, facing the other way the river was reflecting the light of the nearly full moon (2 more days). It was rush hour and there was tons of traffic on the bridge. We headed up the hill into the woods, stopping to eat a granola bar and pulling out our headlamps. We walked up and up to the ridge and found a flat spot to camp where the trail crossed an old road bed , we followed the road bed up the hill to a flat spot near what looked like the old foundations for a fire tower.