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PATH Timetable for Newark to NYC - Very frequent train and cost is $1.50 each way, best way into the city on bike.
BIKE TRAILS
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Indiana trails
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Pennsylvania bike trails
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West Virginia rail trails
TOURING
Ken Kifer's Touring Site
Touring @ Everything2
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GEAR
the Alcohol stove - A reliable, easy to use, dirt cheap camping stove
Aluminum can latern
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My Supply Inventory
bike trip packing list
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PLACES TO STAY
WOOF USA - Worktrade at organic farms across the country in exchange for food and a bed.
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14.july
i made it to asheville. i'm at the library, here it costs a dollar to use the internet so i'm trying to get my moneys worth. just about an hour ago i was really cold, it was about 50 degrees atop this big old mountain about 6000 feet above sea level, now its really hot. it was about 25 miles straight down hill into asheville. it's been a long time since i updated this, i tried to in roanoke but then i forget all about it.
the skyline drive was very beautiful. it's in shenadoah national park and i had to pay 8$ to get in. i got this thing called a back country camping permit which was free, and that piece of paper contained incantations which kept the cops at bay at night. i slept three nights in the park along the appalacian trail. two nights i slept in those little huts they have down in there. the biking was pretty hard, lots of ups and downs, but the view was astounding. i met a couple of folks hiking the trail and it sounds like a lot of fun, they leave notes for eachother in those little notebooks they have and it seems like a big old party in some ways. i ran into folks on a "beer a mile" expedition. i was warned several times about bears and nearly everyone i ran into had seen one or two, but i have yet to see one. i saw plenty of deer however, they have no predators and people feed them so they are almost tame. they'd be sitting in the middle of the road and i'd come right up alongside them and they didn't bat a whisker. i got a bit woried about them getting hit by cars.
by the time i hit the blue ridge parkway (which is the continuation of the skyline drive with a different name and is also free), i had been doing about 30 miles a day. so i realized i needed to step up my pace if i was going to make it to wildroots. i had to do about 75 miles a day from then on. i just about accomplished that goal, one day it poured so i only got in 50 miles. the first part of it was rough, but near the virgina/north carolina border it got more pleasent and had lots of rolling hills. there was this one nasty hill called "apple orchard hill" which was about 15 miles long and climbed 3,300 feet. one day i rode with a couple from balitmore, they were real nice people but we parted ways cause i needed to get in more miles. i ran into them two days latter when it was pouring out and i was sitting under a roof reading a book. they invited me to a family barbeque and i had some much needed hotdogs and potato salad. they stayed the night in a hotel and i pedaled onward. i ran into this other guy one morning, he was totally loaded out AND was pulling a heavily packed trailer. he weighed in at around 200 pounds! he was from ohio.
overall it's been real pretty. i got lots of neat photos to show when i get home. i'm afraid they might all look the same though, just some bluish mountains in the distance, but with differing shapes. i'm going to try to make it up to wildroots tonight and stay until monday or tuesday. then i'm heading to greensboro to meet hallie. it ought to take about 2 or 3 days to get to greensboro. i was thinking seriously of hitchhiking cause i'm a little tired after all those moutains, but i don't think i'll do it cause its hard to get a ride with a bike.
5.july
i'm at some small town library about 10 miles north of wincester, virgina. last night it stormed while i was hanging out on a church stoop, staying nice and dry. after the lightning passed me by i swung around to the back of the church and went into the thicket there and set up camp under a cedar tree. i had me some delicious spagetti for dinner, while the world exploded all around me in a hail of fireworks. it rained in the middle of the night and i got my tarp out and slept nice and dry.
to update you since cumberland, took me several more days to go down the trail. the c&o is a straight up dirt road, pot holes and all where truck tires spin in the mud. it is not really designed for bikes despite what some may claim. however, it was in better condition than i recall. i would have loved some shock absorbing technology (wider tires?). i was on it for only 70 miles, for about ten or so miles i jumped on the Western Maryland bike trail which is paved. it turns out i probably could have been on that for 20 miles but there were no signs to inform me of this! its possible to get on at lock 54 and stay on it until passed Big Pool. it seems strange that they built a bike trail alongside another bike trail, but the C&O isn't really a bike trail. as far as i'm concerned the bike trail only goes from Mckeesport to Cumberland and ends there, then you pick up on a dirt road.
anyway, the C&O was really beautiful. its heavily forested the entire way, there were some real huge trees likely several hundred years old. i even saw one or two small groves of these huge trees, you couldn't exactly call it an old growth forest -it was far too small- but it was real pretty. generally, the camping is good, in some places i had to really hunt to find firewood. but you're pretty much on your own out there in the middle of the woods. i saw more deer than i could count, lots of bunnies, squerriels, canadian geese, song birds, two families what were probably wild turkeys but the seemed too gray. i did some fishing in the canal after i spoted some giant two and a half foot bass swimming around in it. i thought it would be real cruel to take a fish out of water have him flail around like he's going to die and have him thinking his last thoughts, telling his family goodbye and seeing his life flash before his eyes and then through him back into the water like it was all a big joke. so i resolved that if i caught a fish i'd eat him. i ended up catching my first fish, a 6inch sunfish. i knocked him out and took him to my camp and fried him up in some oil with some salt and pepper on him. he was delicious! the fillets were tiny, but tasted real good.
my last night on the trail i happened upon some folks getting ready to have a big old family camping party. i talked with them a little and they gave me some hamburgers and hot dogs which were so good. my hand had been hurting me for a while now, it had been getting better but i think it had been broken before. i keep forgetting about this and shaking peoples hands and it always hurts. well, this gentleman gave me one of those handshakes that could crush a walnut and theres a big old cracking sound in my hand. it hurt like anything after that and i believe it has broken again. thats no way to shake someones hand! i have some bandage wrap and got it wrapped up real good so i doesn't hurt much unless i move it real funny. i believe it will hold up.
well, today i'm off to Front Royal, VA and there i'll meet the start of the blue ridge parkway. i could probably make it through the national park in 2 or 3 days, then the parkway continues through some national forest for a while. should be really beautiful, can't wait to see it. i ought to make it to wild roots in about 5 or 6 days i'm guessing. i've been moving really slow on that trail, but now that i'm back on the road my sprits are up and the riding is a lot less boring so i think i'll be putting in more miles a day.
2.july, 2007
I'm in Cumblerland, Maryland right now. I've been going at a pretty mellow pace, it took me 3 days to get this far. Nothing very exciting has happened. Been doing a good bit of fishing, although i haven't been catching anything at all. The black raspberries are ripe and i've been stopping a lot and eating lots of those. I've seen lots of other folks with the same idea collecting berries to bring home. There's lots of day lilies everywhere and i've been picking the unopened buds as well as the spent blossoms. They are real good boiled up and taste great with my macaroni and cheese. The first day out i found lots of purslane growing in some sandy mud along side the trail. That stuff real tasty, got some growing in the garden back home. The first night some raccon stole my dehydrated refried beans that i had hanging up, he ate my goldfish too -the bastards! Otherwise, i've been able to hold off the 'coons from eating my food. There's this one animal that likes to walk around my camp at night and make a clicking sound, not sure what that might be. I ought to make it to Hagerstown, MD tomorrow night and then leave behind this bike trail. I suppose i'll make it to the blue ridge parkway on the fourth of july, i'll try to catch some fireworks. Maybe i'll by a hotdog.
7.june
I'm planning my bike trip to Okercoke, North Carolina. I'm going to spend the week at the barrier island of Okercoke with Hallie and her family. Tentive plans are to leave June 25th.
