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The
Free State is so far the one out of nine states where
GET hiker can walk on marked and maintained trail through
the entire state, on not one, but two, routes!
The
trail enters Maryland at the Town of Hancock, where the
state is barely one mile wide - in a straight line, which
the GET does not follow! After crossing the US 522 bridge
and getting off into downtown on the completed and well
maintained Tuscarora
Trail, hiker's choice is to turn east on a six-mile
run along the historic C&O
Canal National Historical Park towpath - or west for
a longer run on the towpath.
The
184.5-mile canal, built between 1828 and 1850, was the
fifth longest in the United States. Preserved for historically
sensitive non-motorized use through the vision of U.S.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas and others,
this precious greenspace stretching from the Nation's capital
to the heart of Appalachia features many historic structures,
including 11 stone aqueducts, one of which is on the east
loop. It is perhaps the gentlest segment of the entire
GET and is also part of the Potomac
Heritage National Scenic Trail, which when complete
will link the tidewater of the Chesapeake Bay through Washington,
D.C., to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The
C&O towpath on both west and east loops of the GET
also hosts America's coast-to-coast American
Discovery Trail .
If
the hiker turns east, the trail leads along the C&O
Towpath National Park, turning north at Licking Creek,
milepost 116 on the C&O. The hiker follows the Tuscarora
Trail into through Maryland for six miles, crossing into
Pennsylvania at Yeakle Mill. (See PATC Map K.)
GET's
west loop moves along the C&O Towpath, to exit at Lock
58 (mile 144.5 on the C&O) on Long Pond Trail, just
past the tiny hamlet of Little Orleans, into the
beautifully mapped Green Ridge State Forest - to Pine
Lick Trail, crossing surprisingly remote Appalachian ridges
to reach Pennsylvania's Mid
State Trail.
News
release from Maryland DNR about the west loop of the GET
in GRSF.
Presently
the GET is fully hikeable from the Allegheny Trail
at I-64 exit 1, just east of the VA/WV border, northward
through portions of VA, WV, all of MD, all of PA, to
Maple Street in the Village of Addison, NY.
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