Date: 2023-05-16
From: Bears Den Trailhead

To: Towns Inn Hostel at Harpers Ferry
Miles today: 20.1

Hiking Day 66 Ending Elevation 246 feet Sleeping on a thick pad of grass in Don¢s meadow was truly wonderful¢¦soft and padded! The only disadvantage to sleeping in a meadow is that it tends to be very damp, and we awoke this morning to wet sleeping bags and a wet tent, inside and out. I put the sleeping bags in the dryer for 20 minutes and wiped down the tent walls with a towel and once the sun had risen above the horizon for an hour or two, the tent dried out.Amy made us a wonderful breakfast with scrambled eggs from her own chickens. Everything was delicious and filling. Don got us to the trailhead by 8 a.m. and we were off. It turned out the ¢roller coaster¢ we were on yesterday continued on for another 4 miles. When we came to the end of it, the tread improved and the ups and downs became less steep. My friend Arthur has been such a wealth of information on the history of the trail and he did a lot of work in this section: he wrote to me, ¢For 11 years I was the trail overseer (maintainer) for the AT section from the crest of Loudon Heights into Harpers Ferry. Dave Richie, the NPS superintendent for the Appalachian National Scenic Trail preceded me as overseer and Don Owen (note from me, this is the same Don who hosted Kerry and I last night) succeeded me as overseer. So when you begin your descent from Loudon Heights down to the Shenandoah River you'll be walking "our" trail! Prior to 1987 the AT continued along the crest of Loudon Heights directly to the US340 bridge across the Potomac River. The trail it now follows was previously the Loudon Heights Trail within the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. On January 28, 1986, A HFNHP park ranger, an ATC trails person, and I scouted Loudon Heights for the potential relocation of the AT for direct access to Harpers Ferry and the ATC headquarters. It's easy for me to remember the exact date because when we returned to Harpers Ferry clips of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster were showing on the restaurant TV. Ultimately, the decision was made to utilize the existing Loudon Heights Trail, for which I was the overseer. So later that spring, after approval was granted, I painted the AT white blazes over the Loudon Heights Tail blue blazes and literally brought the Appalachian Trail into Harpers Ferry!¢Now I¢ve walked that section, I can understand why the change was made. There¢s a lot of history in Harpers Ferry and the change in route allows us to walk over both the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers.The woods today were less dense than they have been, so we could see further into the understory. And those blooming ¢blackberries¢ kerry and I have been seeing so much of were all over the place today. But now we are beginning to think they may be different from the berries we see in the west. Dubose, our Waynesboro shuttle driver, called them raspberries, which seemed unlikely, but now we are not so sure.Don had offered to drive our packs to Harpers Ferry, and this allowed us to hike the 20 miles without backpacks for a more easy going day. I used my new hands-free leash with bungee cord on Felix and it worked great. I think we were both more comfortable. We ate real sandwiches for lunch at Don¢s house were delicious, so no trail food today; it was great.At Harpers Ferry, we checked in to Towns Inn and then we had fish and chips at the Rabbit Hole restaurant across the street, after a nice shower and we will have clean clothes for tomorrow¢¦2 days in a row.I¢m sorry we weren¢t able to arrive early enough to visit the Appalachian Trail Conservancy Headquarters¢¦.perhaps a reason to return some day!