Rollerblading in MD

The trail head

"Wanna go blading?" George asks me. "Sure!" I respond. It was forecasted to rain in Pittsburgh, so we cheated and went to Maryland instead. Specifically, to the Western Maryland Heritage Trail (WMRT) down near Hancock, a mere 2.5 hour drive from us. George brought fuzzy maps which we tried to read.

The trail

The trail was gorgeous once we got away from town. Smoothly paved, fairly clear of debris, nice tree cover for most of it. To our left was a creek, an unpaved biking trail, and a larger canal, which was visible on rare occasions.

Trail sights

The area around it had clearly been in use in the past, and various signs described some of the history, but now was pretty much deserted. We passed several abandoned, dilapidated houses, shacks, and pieces of building. The poles held no wires. The signs were recent.

About halfway down, there was a house where people clearly lived. Out next to the trail there was a trailer offering water, bicycles, and rides back to town for small fees. The trail itself had recently been used for some casual artwork.

A blocked off cave

A few miles in, we came across a boarded up old limestone cave. I started to move closer to see inside, but the grasses nearby held some pretty impressive spiderwebs, and I didn't want to disturb them.

The canal, a bug, a feather

After being promised entryways to the canal for miles, we finally found a path down. We crossed over a few tiny wooden bridges over the lock, and a steep path led down to the water, where bugs were waiting to eat us for lunch, so we headed back up to the grass to eat ours.

On the way back, George found a turkey feather.