Tubing on the Potomac, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

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I promised myself no hiking this weekend, so I headed out to do more tubing.  I didn’t want a long ride so I headed to Charles Town, WV.  

I spent the night on a quiet street and then headed to Harpers Ferry the next morning.  It was really overcast and after mulling it over I decided to take my chances with an early tube run.  I locked my bike and pack at the C&O towpath and AT intersection at Weverton and then drove ¼ mile north of Harpers Ferry for a put-in. One word about this area, PFDs are required.  I was the only one on the river and was able to get up close and personal with some turkey vultures that were hanging out on the rocks below HP.

The best rapids on the river are about  1/3 of a mile northwest of the Sandy Hook Bridge.  The river moves pretty well but not too fast in these parts.  Good for tubing.  
While near the end of my run some people came by in kayaks, they were taking a beginning white water kayak class.  The instructor was a bit of an pest and tried to start a conversation with me, I wasn’t having any because he was annoying.  The instructor told his pupils about all the safety equipment that was absolutely positively necessary when on the river like helmets and paddles and other useless crap.  One student asked the instructor about me, who had none of the above equipment, and the instructor boldly informed him, “The woman in the tube was most likely a tube guide.”   My already large ego was just expanded, now I am a tube guide!  Who knew?

Feeling pretty good after I returned to my car I drove back to Charles Town, jumped on somebody’s Internet connection to see if there was any live music playing.  Charles Town is a bit of a dud when it comes to night life and the only band I could find that wasn’t at a country club was at Charles Town Raceway and Slots.  I figured, “Why not?”

So off to the casino I went.  Mind you, I don’t drink, smoke or gamble and I had already eaten but I didn’t have anything better to do.   I ended up walking in the wrong door and couldn’t find the casino.  A security guard saw my confusion and asked what I was doing there.  I tried to look like I belonged there and said I was confused about how to get upstairs.  He said to me, “What are you, a horse trainer?”

I got demoted from tube guide to horse trainer in a span of three hours.  I realized that maybe I did look like a horse trainer, I was still wearing my Wal-Mart river clothes and a bird had defecated on my shoulder during my tube run, I hadn’t done such a good job of cleaning the mess off I guess.  

The slots casino was a happening place, think Las Vegas but with maybe 1/100th of the budget.  The bones of the structure were definitely a large warehouse gussied up with plenty of flashing lights and thousands of slots machines.  It was filled with people from the Mid Atlantic area.  Mind you, nobody at this place would ever be accused of styling and profiling.  This was a shorts and tee-shirt type of crowd.  I saw a couple of the horsie races. The jockeys looked like they all came from the same Latino country, they were cute, and I am wondering if somebody could clue me in to where they are from. The featured band, Quiet Fire Soul Show, was set up in the middle of rows of slot machines and people gathered around to here its soul and disco music.  Pretty soon we were all dancing happily in the rows of slot machines.  A word of advice, don’t order the Brownie Sunday at the casino food court.  The brownie tastes like regurgitated cigarette butts.

I spent Saturday night in another quiet neighborhood in Charles Town.  I woke up and it was raining so I decided to drive home, not willing to find something to do in the rain.

Tubing on the Potomac near Paw Paw and Western Maryland Rail Trail

Tubing on the Potomac near Paw Paw

View Tubing on the Potomac North of Paw Paw in a larger map

Ever since I bought my tube float a few weeks ago I wanted to think if there was a way to incorporate a bike ride with a trip down a river. I also wanted an excuse to explore the Green Ridge State. I had had such a good time at Paw Paw, WV 2 weeks ago I wanted to return and spend some more time in that region. I left Saturday morning with a couple of day’s worth of food, my tube, my bike, a tent and minimal gear.

The forest is a set of small hills and valleys with a labyrinth of logging roads crisscrossing it. The ride through was a little treacherous. Even though there were lots of official Maryland State campsites sprinkle among the trees, almost nobody was camping. I decided Paw Paw was to be my tubing endpoint destination and I dropped my bike off near the tunnel and proceeded up the road about 6 miles at a place called Town Creek Aqueduct.

Within seconds of my arrival I had locked my car and popped my tube in the Potomac and I was off. I waved to some local boys who had set up camp. It took me 3 hours to go 6 miles in the river, where I hit about 3 sets of Class I&II rapids otherwise my trip down river was pretty uneventful.

I found my bike and switched the lock to the tube and PFD. This is where it gets interesting. For some reason I got it into my head that the Paw Paw Tunnel was north of this point, so I strapped on my headlamp and headed through the tunnel without thinking. It took me about two miles after I left the exit of the tunnel to ponder why the canal was on the left of me and the river on the right, this didn’t make sense. After I thought about it awhile I concluded I was going in the wrong direction. This snafu necessitated a U-turn and a trip back through the tunnel, and then 6 more miles in the right direction. Mind you, I dislike getting anywhere near the C&O towpath, it looks to me like a 184-mile long malaria breeding pit.

When I returned to my car the local boys whom I had met at the put-in offered me to share their stealth camp-site off the river. I thought about spending the night at the river but I knew it would rain hard so I politely declined. I drove the minivan back through the Green Ridge Forest via a cumbersome but fun logging road. I found myself motoring through a ravine when the sky broke loose with thunder and lightening so I drove under a set of trees and spent the night there.

The next morning I decided to take a bike ride and drove to Hancock, MD which is home to the Western Maryland Rail Trail. I ate a hearty breakfast at Weaver’s Restaurant and the kind waitress pointed me in the direction of the trail, which turned out to be directly in back of the restaurant. Duh!

To all bike trail users: The western half of this trail is one of the nicest I have ever ridden, it’s wide, freshly asphalted, has beautiful views of the Potomac and you enter and exit the road gates centrally which is really really nice. Also, instead of having the usual Civil War signs (At this site in 1863 General Stonewall Jackson looked at General George McClellan sideways blah, blah, blah) or environmental signs (Pond scum is the dominant plant-life here in the canal) the trail has informative descriptions about the little businesses that happened along the canal and railroad like apple farms, concrete and sand companies. It is worth stopping and reading.

After I got done with this portion I headed south and did an up and back of 20 miles on the southern segment. This segment is directly adjacent to I-70, it is forgettable and should be avoided unless you are very interested in Little Pool.