kristingbridgesThe hardest part of Day 4 was getting up out of Meyersdale. It’s always getting up to or out of the towns that are the worst when we’re on tours. The hill hit a 10.6% grade, which is probably where I baled. Brian stuck it out, but since we had literally just started, my muscles weren’t warmd up and my heart rate spiked. I’d rather bale and walk up the hill than blow out my legs before we got out on the trail to finish our climb up the mountain. Oh, and no, we didn’t have any more ghost activity at the hotel that night, in case you were wondering!
We had another pretty day, if a bit hot. It was slightly disappointing that we came earlier than usual, but still just missed the blooms on the Mountain Laurel, from which the Laurel Highlands of this area gets its name. The Paw Paws we have seen before haven’t come on yet. So we missed both. But we have seen some colors on the trees and even without the blooms, the Mountain Laurel is beautiful.
After about 12 miles of climbing, we reached the highest point on the trail (2392 ft.) at the Eastern Continental Divide. That began the fun 20 mile ride down to Cumberland through the Big Savage Tunnel (3294 ft. long!) as well as the smaller Borden and Brush tunnels, both a little under 1000 ft. long. We got to Frostburg part way down and since it was about time for lunch, we decided to climb the switchback trail up to the lower part of town, by the train station of the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. Unfortunately, the train only runs certain days, and the little BBQ and ice cream shops were only open on “train days.” The BBQ was good the last time we were there. But we headed back down to the shelter and had the last of our peanut butter on our tortillas for lunch.
We made it into Cumberland in time for a late lunch at a cute little European cafe, with the best Cokes ever! (In case you haven’t noticed the pattern, any Coke after a day on the trail is the best ever!) We hosed off our bikes at the bike wash area at our hotel and got some rest before dinner. Yay for hotels that let you bring your bikes to your room AND have a bike wash. We were coated in trail dust and so were our bikes. Also, we really love the Pinion gear system on our new bikes. It uses a carbon fiber belt, so there’s no chain to clean and lube and no derailleur to get clogged up with trail dirt and dust. We just wash it off and it’s good to go!
We were super tired last night, but felt good this morning, and the rain didn’t look like it would hit us, so we decided to try something we haven’t done yet. The climb to the summit is more steep from this direction than the way we came. We wanted to see if was that bad. We also hope to someday do bigger climbs, so this was a good test. 24 miles of climbing worth of test! We start at 600 ft. in Cumberland and end at 2392 at the top. It took us 3 hours to get back up there, but it was just a little slower and a gear or two lower than going up the other side. We did leave our larger panniers back in the room and only took some snacks, water, tools, first aid, and rain gear with us. We did get sprinkled on, but apparently missed some strong storms around Cumberland after we left (yay!). The 24 miles back down was fun, but our seats could feel the 5 hours on the seats!
Tonight we got to get our laundry done in the hotel and got some good dinner. Tomorrow we have some time to kill here in town and then catch our train back to Pittsburgh. I’ve got observations about this trip vs. others, but this is already a long post, so there will be an epilogue coming.
