Date: 2003-07-08
From: Blackburn Trail Centre

To: Harper's Ferry, W. Va.
Miles today: 12.0

I came into Harper's Ferry yesterday afternoon and met up with "Thistle" and "Two Speeds" at the ATC Headquarters on Washington Street. We were invited outside to have our photographs taken for posterity besde the ATC sign, and the polaroids were duly stamped and added to the large album of thru hikers "class of 2003". Looking at the album was almost like a reunion. We knew almost everyone in it. Some people we hadn't seen since Georgia and yet they were only (but always) a few days ahead of us. The ATC maintains statistics about its hikers. From 1936-70 only about 60 people had ever walked the entire AT. This year, about 1700 hopeful thru hikers set out from Springer Mountain, about 1300 made it to Neel's Gap, and around 600 have got to Harper's Ferry.We are staying at the Hilltop House Hotel, an old hotel which is a strange mixture of the grand, the genteel, and the down-at-heel. They offer some rooms at a hiker rate which is why we are here. What the hotel does have is an unrivalled view up and down the Potomac River and of Maryland Heights opposite. I don't believe there is any town in America that has a more dramatic or beautiful setting than Harper's Ferry. Right at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, it is overlooked by Maryland Heights and Louden Heights on the Maryland (obviously) and Virginia sides of these rivers respectively. The town itself is arranged down the steep slope of Bolivar Heights here on the West Virginia side. If your interest is industrial development, the history of transportation, or the American Civil War, then Harper's Ferry was deeply involved in all of these and brings them all excitingly to life. The Federal Armoury and Arsenal were established here at the end of the 18th century and transformed this place into an industrial centre. The Baltimore & Ohio railroad (along the Potomac), the Winchester & Potomac railroad (along the Shenandoah) and the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal all converged on the water gap here in the 1830s. John Brown staged his abolitionist insurrection here in 1859, Stonewall Jackson besieged and captured a 12,500 Union garrison here during the Antietam campaign, and the town changed hands eight times during the Civil War.  The town's industries were destroyed by the war and a succession of disastrous floods, but the railways still operate and are heavily used. Sitting on a bench in Shenandoah Street, you don't wait long before a whistle is blowing , the ground and air seem to throb, before finaly a team of three or more huge CSX engines come slowly into view pulling anything from 150 to 200 freight cars behind them. Tremendous screeching of metal on metal ensues for the next fifteen minutes. The effects are even more striking when the train comes along the Shenandoah line which is elevated on a long trestle bridge about twenty five feet above street level. Quite surreal to see the engines emerging from the tree tops. I am quite awestruck by it, locals totally ignore it. These notes betray that the tourist in me is itching to break out. But I'm here as a thru hiker, and from that viewpoint, the town leaves a lot to be desired. A hostel and campground are both over a mile out of town. John Brown went (not voluntarily) from here to Charlestown, five miles away, to be tried, sentenced and executed. Hikers must make the same trip, not very happily either, to do their laundry and grocery shopping. A town like this has no grocery store! The comparison may seem fanciful, and I don't want to be associated with John Brown, but tomorrow our soles will go marching on. Into Maryland. P.S. Ever since Daleville, we have been trying in vain to re-unite with "Chafe Master J". All the way to Waynesboro, we heard he was only a day behind. Then the AT grapevine told us he was hurt, and then that he had jumped ahead to Harper's Ferry via D.C. to recuperate. But he isn't here and we believe he may now be a day or two ahead of us. Ih he zeroes at Fayetteville, then maybe we'll join up at last.