MD C&O Canal Section 6: Brunswick to Bolivar Heights
After many months of "too busy' to return to our ongoing C&O Canal Towpath section hike we said "Dammit!" and unbusied ourselves from teaching, office work, and communicating scientifically to walk this next section from Brunswick MD to Harpers Ferry WVa. Counting as #5 in my 2022 52-Hike Challenge, it was a great hike of about 10 miles total with 6.5 on the towpath and a little over 3 up from the lower town to the upper town of Harpers Ferry and Boliver Heights back to where we left a car at the National Park shuttle and parking area on top of the mountain.
Picking up where we left off in Brunswick MD
The day was cloudy, a little blustery, and typical for February in the Mid-Atlantic, but walking kept us warm and happy. There were lots of people out biking, hiking, backpacking. With the Potomac on our left, ice-free and running fast, the low woods were full of vernal ponds - some frozen, others not - where soon there will be wood frogs barking, spring peepers peeping, and leopard frogs growling. I think of the C&O lowlands as one of the richest amphibian habitats I know about and this is due in large part to the river's penchant for heavy flooding and our neglect of the canal.
Tulip poplar shelter in a gullied flood landscape
Culvert collapse
When the canal was built, it was designed to allow streams and rivers to flow freely under the constructed canal bed, to keep it safe from flooding, and the canal watered. We've walked over impressive aqueducts and examined beautiful stone-built culverts, marveling at the ways water was engineered. In this section however, we observed many places where flooding has resulted in the loss of some of this historic passageway but big gains for wetland habitat. Now we are in the Appalchian mountains and the steepness of the terrain adds to the speed and force of runoff towards the river. Things wash out. Sometimes the river inundates the canal and the path. In many places we observed wash-outs of historic walls, two-hundred year old culverts ripped apart, and smaller feeder canals erased near abandoned locks. This is not a bad thing if you are a wood frog.
Canal towpath trail
Lockhouse No. 51
Birdsong has returned to the river woods and we have now walked the C&O in all seasons. Hints of spring's return were everywhere. Titmice, chickadees, white-throated sparrows, Carolina wrens, cardinals, goldfinches, woodpeckers, kinglets, and juncos all had something to say. Red-shouldered hawks are returning to nesting sites in the heavy white limbs of sycamores and poplar. We checked for owls nesting in holes and snags. Great horned owls should be on eggs. Bald eagles and ravens are courting.
Potomac River (pic by Amy)
MM 57 stands on a culvert over a local stream
Great white sycamores were really beautiful against the pewter hills.
As one of the last great water-engineering projects of the 19th century, the Army Corps of Engineers planners had envisioned that the canal would connect Pittsburg PA to Washington D.C. but their staggering estimates for over $22 million to build forced President John Quincy Adams in 1826 to turn to private canal building companies instead who low-balled Army estimates and won contracts to build it in sections. It may not have been the wisest investments considering two of your competitors the Potomac and the Shenandoah, which are famous for their flooding.
The AT shares a few miles of the C&O
See the AT? Hello AT!
By the time the canal was completed to Cumberland in 1850 it had already exceeded original Army Corps estimates and canal transport companies entrusted to operate it were saddled with enormous debt. Flood repair was an expensive fact of life on the canal in this section. Marked by many historic flood disasters, we observed dozens flood-carved gullies and scoured stream beds from historic floods of the 20s, 50s, 60s and even Tropical Storm Agnes (1972). Older flood gullies are sealed by more recent floods against the river by silt and sand deposits and are now vernal refugia awaiting the emergence of masses of migrating frogs and salamanders. Wood ducks, once considered uncommon, are now common here as the wooded wetlands offer plenty of hollow trees to lay (many) eggs. Herons have several impressive rookeries over the canal and turtle will soon emerge to breed and lay eggs in the soft sandy bottom woods. We can't wait for our favorite snakes to emerge - we love snakes. But it is still quite cold for them, though I was keeping an eye out for the cold tolerant garter snakes.
The bend of the Potomac at Harpers Ferry and layers of flood repair to the canal wall.
Harpers Ferry Lower Town comes into sight around the big bend
Inside a giant sycamore snag
Maryland Heights crossing, iconic B&O Railroad Tunnel, and faded 1920s toilet powder ad (!)
Crossing the bridge over the Potomac! (pic by Amy)
We were awed by the massive Maryland Heights cliffs where Union troops were dug in on top and where enormous Navy siege cannon emplacements and tranches can still be explored by hiking up a side trail off the C&O. A lone solo climber was skirting across the faded 1920s painted ad for toilet powder.
Union forces were entrenched with huge artillery pieces up there. Whoa.
Maryland Heights from West Virginia. (Pic by Amy)
We hiked into Harpers Ferry, where the U.S. Army maintained an enormous armory that manufactured over 600,000 rifles and muskets. It was a Confederate target and prize in the early years of the Civil War and lots of military engagements, including the build-up of troops and supplies for Antietam just upriver happened on the hill above us. John Brown carried out his famous raid here in 1859 and was captured and hung for his abolitionist activities that sought to arm slaves with weapons captured from the armory. They failed but his actions stood to fire up the anti-slavery movement that launched the American Civil War. This is what most people coming to Harpers Ferry National Military Park come for. But there is so much more.
Armory Provost Office
Storer College and Niagara Movement Museum
Walking up High Street to the Upper Town.
Walking up the steep hill to the Upper Town Harpers Ferry and Boliver Heights we lost the park crowds below and learn more about Storer College and discovered Civil War sites that we'd never visited before. We picked up a map for the African American History walking tour and checked out some of its rich historic locations along the way. My sister and I have been coming to Harpers Ferry all our lives but only to the National Park location at the confluence and this walk up the hill opened a whole new history for us so we are excited to come back and explore some more. Add to that Smith Mountain, our family roots in Appalachia, was visible to us from up here so we did a lot of reminiscing.
Early caddisfly! Time for fly fishing! (Pic by Amy)
Smith Mountain was where uncles and aunts had their cottages and cabins, did their hunting, tended to their orchards and bees. We remembered those glorious summer reunions on the Shenandoah and (for me) adventurous winter visits to our beloved mountain family. We remembered drinking homemade sassafras beer, fly fishing, and arrowhead hunting. We learned to canoe on the Shenandoah and how to make the best chili dogs with venison sausage and long-simmered venison chili. It's where I learned to keep bees. I started hiking the Appalachian Trail with my uncles when I was very small and still hike it today in my 60s.
Appalachian Trail Conservancy HQ (!)
Cannonball damage to St. John's in Boliver Heights (October 16, 1861)
A peek of Smith Mountain to the left of the entrance sign!
We rounded the bend on Washington Street and began our slow road walk past the Boliver Heights Battlefield. It was the location for so much military action during the Civil War but few people come up here from the popular Lower Town attractions. We stopped to gawk where a cannonball pierced the wall of a hilltop church. We took a look at Stonewall Jackson's headquarters. We said hello to the boneyard folks sleeping under the boxwood and cedars. We stopped at the wonderful Boliver Bread Bakery and snacked out on the last of the day's fresh baked cookies and scones. Soon we were back at the National Park main gate on top of Boliver Heights, back to the car, and in full view of Smith Mountain across the river.
Boliver Heights Battlefield - so few people come up here as it seems the Lower Town gets all the tourist attention, but this is where repeated Civil War battles were fought for control of the armory below and served as a massive encampment for troops on their way to fight at Antietam. https://www.nps.gov/places/harpers-ferry-bolivar-heights.htm
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