Great Allegheny Passage

There are two articles in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review abut The Great Allegheny Passage This weekend.

One by Paul G Wiegman about the geology of the trail.

Just a few hundred yards farther northeast of the tilted rock is a concrete underpass below McKenzie Hollow Road and another important geologic or geographic feature of the Great Allegheny Passage. This is the Eastern Continental Divide.

Water falling on land to the east drains into small streams that join Wills Creek. That creek joins the Potomac River at Cumberland, then flows into the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean.

To the west, water goes into Flaugherty Creek, the Casselman, Youghiogheny, Monongahela, Ohio and Mississippi rivers and, finally, into the Gulf of Mexico. A more precise was of looking at this watershed divide is as a sub-continental divide, because all the water ends up in the Atlantic Ocean. The continental divide along the Rocky Mountains is a true continental divide, because it splits water going into two different oceans.

The other article is more like a journal. It was written by Karen Price. It seems that the trail is good for business.

That night we decided to treat ourselves to the indoor plumbing and beds of the Red Roof Inn in Williamsport and pulled into the parking lot to discover only three cars.

The hotel was far from vacant, however.

It's a popular spot for bikers from the trail, and it seemed as if every room I passed on the way to my own either had a bike locked outside or visible through the window. We met most of our fellow cyclists at breakfast at the Waffle House the next morning.

Both are well worth a read.

The Great Alleghany Passage

A nice article by Ken Hastings about his trip from McKeesport PA to Georgetown in Washington DC.

The Great Allegheny Passage is a network of rail trails connecting Pittsburgh, Pa., with the C&O Canal towpath in Cumberland, Md. If you like the idea of a more than 300-mile bicycle trip through history and fabulous scenery, making the entire trip to Washington, DC might just be an adventure you won’t soon forget. My trip this past summer certainly ranks near the top for me.
The adventure started off well before sunrise on a Sunday. My son, Ray, his friend, Karen, and I packed my Sequoia with camping gear, food, clothes, two bike trailers, etc. We loaded three bikes on the rack and started the five-hour trip to McKeesport, Pa.

He said he 110 pounds of gear and that sounds heavy. But in the slide show it looks like he has 110 pounds of gear. One of the bikes had a full size dish pan and a roll of paper towels. Way too much load for me.

Update. Added link to article. Whoops.

Trails Are Good For Business

The Great Allegheny Passage is proving to be good for businesses along the trail. It starts near Pittsburgh, in Mckeesport PA and runs about 150 miles to Cumberland MD. In Cumberland it meets up with the C&O Canal that runs 184.5 miles to Georgetown in Washington DC.

In 2007, Somerset County officials counted 31 new businesses started as a direct result of the Great Allegheny Passage. The Trail Town Program, an arm of the non-profit Progress Fund and supported by government and foundation money, helped start 11 new businesses last year alone. Halfway into 2008, Trail Town has aided eight more, and assisted with another two.

Hikers and bicyclers are good for these small towns.

An economic impact study conducted in 2007 determined the trail is generating $12.5 million in revenue and pouring more than $3 million in wages into trail-side communities.

Three million in wages goes a long way in small town's economy.
Via Tree Hugger.