Date: 2016-04-19
From: Key Gap 

To: Weverton Rd.
Miles today: 9.8
Weather: overcast clouds

We were back on the trail today after a nice weekend back home in Norfolk. I had a doctor¢s appointment that turned out to be nothing (fortunately). And we had a chance to see a production of Shakespeare¢s Tempest that was absolutely fabulous. Princess was sick for about 2 days, that wasn¢t so nice. But we were able to spend time with our friends, and thoroughly enjoyed that. I spent a couple of hours on Saturday at the Smartmouth Brewery and renewed my association with Rule G IPA. And we took care of a number of local chores, spent an evening in DC with my nephew and then drove here to Harpers Ferry early this morning. We split our hike into 2 sections today. You may remember that we jumped forward in our northbound progression on the AT so that we can finish Mt. Kathadin during the summer in good weather. Otherwise, we would have to climb it in October, after we do the JMT, and that¢s too late in the year for Katahdin. Since we¢re coming back from a long weekend, and we had to drive from DC to Harpers Ferry, we planned to do something short today. So we decided to do West Virginia from Keys Gap (the WV/VA state line) into Harpers Ferry. We drove straight to the parking lot near the Shenandoah River bridge, I dropped off Princess and she started hiking southbound. Then I drove back across the bridge and up the hill to Keys Gap where I left the car for her to pick up. Everything went as planned, I met her on the trail halfway through and then I continued hiking northbound to the bridge parking lot where she was waiting with the car. At that point, it was mid-morning, it was pleasant, the sun was out, etc. So we decided to do another short key swap section. This section was only 4 miles from the bridge parking lot, through Harpers Ferry, across the Potomac Bridge, along the C&O canal towpath and then up a short distance to the parking lot at the base of Weverton Cliffs. She did it northbound and I did it southbound. Most of this section is on the towpath (almost 3 miles) and it becomes pretty boring. The towpath is gravel and quite level without features. The only things interesting are the Potomac River rapids and the turtles in the canal. The town of Harpers Ferry is interesting and the AT goes right through the old historic downtown area where the armory that John Brown attacked is located. The trail also passes by Jefferson¢s Rock and there is a side trail to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy that¢s located in Harpers Ferry. We each took more pics than usual, and we were finished with our hike and ready for trouble before noon. Our most difficult task today was finding a place to park our car, that took a while - there is not much room for car parking in the old part of the town. We stayed again at one of our favorite haunts, The Towns Inn on High Street. It¢s right in the heart of old town, but all the activity is during the day, and they roll up the sidewalks after dark. There are only a couple of restaurants/bars in town and one of them burned since we were last here. The Towns Inn used to keep their restaurant and bar open late, but now they¢re closing at 7:00. We¢re only scheduled to be here for 2 nights, so I guess we will survive. The Towns Inn has made some significant changes since last year. They¢ve upgraded their guest rooms a bit, but they¢e still quaint. They now have 2 buildings, one houses the B&B rooms and currently the restaurant. The other houses the hiker hostel and resupply. But construction continues and there will be more changes in the near future.Tomorrow¢s hike is a bit longer. We finished West Virginia today, so tomorrow we¢ll push on further into Maryland, we hope to get as far as Turner¢s Gap. Princess liked splitting the key swap into 2 sections, so we¢ll try that again tomorrow. There is a convenient breakpoint about midway through tomorrow¢s hike - so we¢ll split it into 2 key-swap sections. There¢s one long climb up Weverton Cliffs, I don¢t know who¢ll do that. She tends to prefer the climbs since it¢s easier on her sore foot. Tomorrow has some interesting civil war sites, some state parks and monuments. Plus we plan to stop by the AT Conservancy here in Harpers Ferry after the hike.