Webster Word

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Bike Trip

On August 5 th, 2006 a group of fourteen boy scouts and eight adult leaders from troop 965 Webster, Maryland departed from Cumberland, Maryland to start their two hundred and five mile bike hike along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The scouts biked an average of twenty-thirty miles a day for a whole week. The farthest we went in one day was fifty miles.

There were many tourist attractions on this trip. One of them included the Paw-Paw tunnel, which was amazing to know that they built the tunnel without any dynamite or modern mining technology. We also visited Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia - mainly famous for the site of John Brown’s rebellion. We saw the impressive scenery at the Great Falls National Park located at the head of the Potomac River fall line. At the end of our trip at Georgetown, we rode a canal boat and learned about the extensive history behind the C&O Canal.

Did you know that the C&O Canal was supposed to be built all the way out to Pittsburgh but never made it past Cumberland? It was operated for almost one hundred years, mostly at a loss of profit, until it was sold to the US government. Now, it makes a wonderful place for a hundred and eighty-five mile bike trail.

Matt Collins
Troop Historian