The Miller Treks

The 148.8 mile GAP Trail runs from Cumberland to Pittsburgh along the old Western Maryland and Pittsburgh & Lake Erie railroads. Other than the Historic operations between Cumberland and Frostburg, the line was completely abandoned by 1985 with the closure of the P&LE routes. For the vast bulk of the trail, over 120 miles is covered with "crushed quartz" AKA 'the grit'. This grit becomes cementlike when it gets wet and later dries. Being a porous surface, rain water quickly dissipates. Unless it's stuck to you or your bike. The eastern half is red grit; the western half is light gray with the divide between the two near Ohiopyle.

And this grit gets everywhere.

So Catherine and I begin the 27ish mile climb to the high point of the trail 1816 feet above Cumberland. Frostburg was our first stop 15.5 miles away in a steady drizzle. Got passed by downhill rail carts and the historic train on its uphill run. The climb is relentless, unwavering and unforgiving. A constant 1.3% grade on crushed gravel with no relief.

The hardest corner on the Trail is 1000 ft from the start. Only 147 more to go.

Damsel in distress

Day 1 ends with ice cream from Pages.

Day 2 starts in Frostburg with Jean acting as our Chief of Logistics, Transportation and Supply, Goal- Garrett, PA. Two tunnels including the 3300 foot Big Savage Tunnel, completed in 1911, Then the highpoint and finally the downhill run to Pittsburgh. Sort of.

We happened upon this woman who was riding the GAP trail with her dog. That's not the unusual part; she's doing out and backs from her layover spots, essentially doubling the length of the trail. She's on her way to Cumberland.

Big Savage Overlook

The Mason Dixon Monument denotes the line between the Houses of Calvert and Penn as part of their long border dispute. The granite post and blocks represent the length of the surveyors' chain they used on their survey of the line. In the early 2000's the line was resurveyed using the latest laser and GPS tech and found almost all the stones from the original survey were within feet of where they should be. They concluded that the stones that weren't on the line had been moved by property owners over the two plus centuries including one property owner who stated he had moved his stone to in front of his house to show it off as it formerly stood in the middle of his back yard.