On the Gunpowder Trail

I recall a story about the old prospector and the mule carrying gunpowder up the trail in search of new diggings in the hills.  Later, there was a terrible explosion and when folks in the valley went up to see what happened, all they found was a pair of false teeth and the rear end of a mule.  As folks headed home, the sheriff gathered up the teeth and the mule parts and took them down to a local hospital.  Some years later, the sheriff happened to be riding through and folks asked him whatever became of the false teeth and the mule's rear end.  The sheriff replied that, amazingly, there was a full recovery and the fellow is now serving his first term in Congress.

We saw no mules or prospectors yesterday as we enjoyed a crispy cool, blue spring day hiking along Gunpowder River in northern Maryland.  The Gunpowder is part of a 100-mile trail system within Gunpowder Falls State Park, an 18,000-acre preserve near the border with Pennsylvania.  Just before the trailhead, we drove around the stately, stone-walled Masemore Mill, built in 1797.  For $200 per night, the park will rent you the mill pond cottage, with room for half a dozen weary travelers to sleep their cares away.

A sign at the trailhead warned fishermen about rock snot, a mushy invasive algae that fishermen wearing felt-soled boots can easily and unwittingly transport.  The algae, also called didymo, is very damaging to aquatic ecosystems  The problem is so bad that some states have outlawed felt soles.  Maryland imposed its own ban less than a week ago.

The hike led us over an old steel bridge to the opposite bank of the river where we immediately encountered a little fairyland of "cypress knees."  The odd, woody protrusions, a few inches to a foot or more in height, point upward out of the ground around a bald cypress tree.  We are at the northernmost extension of the species' range; the trees are much more common in the southeastern states.

The narrow dirt path ambles along the humble and meandering river, the smooth current inviting a canoe paddle, better saved for a warmer day.  A lone fly fisherman stood femur-deep in the middle of the clear stream, casting for trout, catch and release sytyle.  Jaggy outcrops of schist from the Wissahickon Formation, a mere 500 million years old, rose sporadically from the forested hillsides.

Those among us who knew something of Maryland's natural history pointed out the evergreen mountain laurels, native hemlocks and pines, and showed Kris and I the difference between an oak tree and a tulip tree, both of which still looked as leafless and dormant as they did in January.  Busy beavers had left their marks on numerous trees, large and small, along several sections of the river.  The remains of an uncertain, fox-sized animal was laid out in the grass just off the path.  A pair of Canadian geese nuzzled the muddy bank below us, while black vultures soared circles over our heads.

After an hour, the trail led below noisy Interstate 83, which towered above us on skinny concrete poles.  We passed a rural road whose bridge had washed away in a hurricane years ago and was never replaced.  With a few effortless miles under out belts, we reached our lunchtime destination: Raven Rock Falls, where a small tributary tumbles over ledges and into the river.

After a long break in the warming sunlight, we began the return, crossing the river at another road and rising high above the other bank, which offered a variety of new scenery and a chance to burn off a few of the extra calories consumed at breakfast.  The final descent toward the trailhead was met with the chatter of a pair of kingfishers dodging about from one river bend to the next.

We affirmed we'd do this hike again when things have greened up and the wildflowers are abloom, then maybe again in the fall.  We were warned, however, to beware of ticks once the weather warms--and not just at Gunpowder, of course.  Copperheads and rattlers are a nearly innocuous threat--on the trail at least--while poison ivy seems to be the more consistent hazard.  Stay on the trail, they say, and you'll do fine.  Coming from a place where the forest is so benign, I can see I'll need to learn some new habits out here.

Great Falls of the Potomac

Great walk today along the gorge of the Potomac, starting and ending at Great Falls.  And they were superbly great today, as advertised.  The river and falls are much bigger than I'd imagined from the photographs, so I owe much greater respect to this seriously great river now.  The churning, boiling falls is like a giant multi-tiered cascade, very broad and sufficiently rumbling to be humbling.  My not so great cell phone camera got me an okay shot (above) before the battery died.  I managed to place my finger in the view for special effect.

The hike along the river gorge is easy and sporting.  Vertical rock walls enclose the torrent for a quite a distance and rock climbers were staking out positions along the brink as we headed downriver mid-morning.  Below the wild water, the river looks inviting for a paddle or float trip.  The woods are barren still, although thin sprays of green are showing up here and there.  Grass blades are pushing up beneath last fall's oak leaves.  I'm starting to recognize poison ivy, not to be messed with I'm told.  Saw a pair of vultures hanging out on the rocks across the river.  A pileated woodpecker hammered unseen somewhere behind us.

I also learned about an interesting annual hike folks like to do around here, simply called the One Day Hike.  It follows the C&O Canal Towpath from Georgetown to Harpers Ferry, which only happens to be 100 km away.  Yes, that's 62 miles of walking in a day.  You start at 3:00 am and must finish by midnight.  It's a flat trail, but holy guacamole.  You can also whimp out at 50 km (31 miles).  I checked the website today and the hike is April 30th, but boo-hoo-scooby-doo, registration is already full.  Darn.  Actually, I'll have to keep my eye on this, in case there's an opening.  I could have a compulsive moment and decide to go for it.  Or not.

Awesome DC rambling

Photo by Kris Wilcox

When Kris and I came out here to DC for the big job interview early in January, we had two-plus days to stroll around the city... Here's some highlights:

From the State Plaza Hotel, which was pretty decent for the money--affordable because we were here in the slow season--we could amble to something interesting in every direction.  The cloud-impaling Washington Monument was close by and worth the short wait in a wintry breeze to board the elevator.  A free ticket gets you not quite to the top of the 555 feet, 5 - 1/8 inch tall obelisk, where the views of the city are predictably awesome.  Would love to climb the stairs, but alas, it's not open to the public.

Our wanders took us to the Lincoln Memorial and the awesome seated statue of the late president.  He must have been a large fellow.  We ducked down to the heated space below to check out the displays, well done.  We were then humbled, as is everyone, by the Vietnam Memorial nearby.  Wow.

We walked the length of the mall (about two miles), glancing over at the well securitized White House, and popping briefly into the Smithsonian Museums of Natural History and Air and Space along the way.  All free and totally awesome.  At Air and Space, you are greeted by John Glenn's capsule; the Columbia command module that brought Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins home from the moon; Amelia Earhart's solo Atlantic airplane, the Vega; as well as the Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis--all there in living color.  Elliott will love this stuff, said Kris (about her oldest nephew in Bellingham).  We'd do the museums justice later.

Near the U.S. Capitol, someone had gathered the last lingering liter of snow into a little snowman with stick arms and pebble eyes.  Kris must have taken a dozen pictures of him with her cell phone (see above).  Quite photogeneic with the dome of the Capitol in the background.  Frosty Jr. was perched on a railing surrounding the awesome U.S. Grant memorial, which includes a substantially correct, anatomically speaking, sculpture of a defining Civil War moment of men on horses, highly detailed.

We looked across the reflection pool and headed for the Capitol itself, surprised to learn that we could join a free one-hour tour of the place without a wait.  There's something to be said about visiting DC in the off-season.  It may be cold and flowerless, but it's also touristless, which makes everything quite accessible and enjoyable.  The numbers of people roaming the mall and museums had since climbed noticeably.  The Capitol tour was, well, awesome.

We scooted past the Supreme Court and I still look forward to sitting in on some deliberations there one of these days.  We marched into Union Station, one of the awesomest architectural monuments in the country.  They say you could lay down the Washington Monument inside and not touch the end walls.  After coffee and a bagel in the food court, we marched onward so I could show Kris where I'd be working if I actually got the job.

We ambled along through downtown and out to Adams-Morgan, a hip and cool part of the city with a lot of history, bars and artsy-fartsy hangouts, not as excessively gentrified as I thought it might be, but what do I know.  It was our first time seeing the place and the blocks upon blocks of century-old (and more) townhouses in all the bright and pastel colors and looking ever-inviting.  We grabbed a coffee at Starbucks, which gets you into the restroom, of course.

One of our three evenings we strolled out Connecticut to the even hipper and allegedly cooler Dupont Circle where the rents are outrageous, but the restaurants, at least some of them, we found to be reasonable.  We enjoyed an excellent meal at the Tomate, a great italian place with window seats and a lot of character.

Then to top it off with the hippest, coolest and charmiest of the old neighborhoods, we scurried over to Georgetown to see what was there.  The nightlife and the daylife both are diverse, curiously quaint and thoroughly entertaining, even for the non-shoppers, as long as you don't mind rubbing elbows with hordes of happy strangers on a sunny afternoon.  Many hours of good walking to be done here, on busy and quiet streets, as well as the old C&O Canal.  I think I'd enjoy living here.  Unfortunately, so would half the city, which seems to have induced some upward influence on rental rates.  Around $2,000 a month will get you into a two-room closet, but very cute.  For a cool $million, you can save your rent and buy your very own historic townhouse with scads of room for guests.  Awesome.

So that's a couple of days in a nutshell.  If this post hadn't gotten so long already, I'd mention the two black guys who sang stunning harmonies for us on the Metro (subway) platform, and the night out with our friends Louis (a former housemate and mountain buddy from Bellingham) and his wife of six (?) years, Elizabeth.  They both now work for Interior--different agencies, same building.  Their lovely two kids were also a kick in the pants.  Great time had by all.

So come to D.C. when the hankerin' hankers.  We'll leave the light on for ya.

With George in the other Other Washington

Greetings friends,

A rumor has been circulating that I may have relocated to the other "Other Washington," the one signified by the letters "D.C.," that is, the District of Columbia.  Okay, mostly true.  I'll explain in a minute.

Leaving Washington for Washington, among other things, raises some trivial curiosities of nomenclature.  The two Washingtons, of course, are rooted in the same genetic source material, the same numero uno presidente of these United States, none other than the cherry tree guy, George.  So, Washington = Washington, more or less.  One's a state, the other a district, whatever.  The naming convention isn't complicated.

But the state of Washington might originally have been called the state of Columbia.  "Columbia" was the name proposed for a new territory in 1852 that would displace most of the northern half of the Oregon Territory, freshly christened by Congress only four years before.  Coincidentally, the territory campaign happened at almost precisely the same time that the son of a black slave named George Washington settled along the Skookumchuck River.  George later donated land for parks, a church and a cemetery in the city he founded there, Centerville, which was later renamed Centralia.  In 1853, Congress agreed to establish the bustling new territory, but a Kentucky Congressman, Richard Stanton, shunned the name "Columbia," in favor of naming it after the popular first president.  And so it would be.

A goodly chunk of the remaining Oregon Territory achieved statehood in 1859, and over the next three decades promoters in Washington Territory pursued a comparable dream.  Some harkened back to the earlier romance and insisted the new state be called Columbia.  Others suggested the State of Tacoma had a special ring.

Some wanted no state at all, including many Democrats in Congress, who had agreed to statehood for Colorado in 1876, only to see its three electoral college votes in the presidential election later that year cast for Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, thereby turning one of the most controversial elections in U.S. history.  Democrat Samuel Tilden, who won the popular vote by a solid margin, would have otherwise become president.  The wounds would heal, however, and in 1889, the spirit of George would be forever emblazoned upon the nation's 42nd state.

As far as I can gather, the District of Columbia has scarely anything in common with the territory of Columbia, nor the really big river--biggest on the West Coast of North America--that some of us Left Coasters may be a tad better acquainted with than the famously infamous district way out yonder.

Nor does the name, Columbia, share much of a story with that sprawling province of a neighboring country up north, the ginormous spectacle of an almost sub-continent-sized place with the shortest possible nickname: B.C.  As if to one-up the Americans (Congressman Stanton in particular), Queen Victoria announced in 1858 that the name British Columbia would make a fine moniker for the distant province, even if it was now quite removed from the lion's share of the great river that the Brits had once laid claim to.

The river Columbia--and come to think of it, that is a nice sounding quartet of syllables--won its name from a ship, the Columbia Rediviva, in May 1792, when American furtrader Robert Gray doubled-dog-dared the standing waves of the Columbia River bar and heeled his way into the river's mouth.  For a time, Rediviva was tendered by the Lady Washington, a 90-ton sloop named for the wife of, well, George, the namesake of the two Washingtons.

A few leagues up the mountainously walled river, one can now enjoy a weekend getaway to the tiny city of George, Washington.  George, being on the gorge, was named and founded on the Fourth of July by a balding fellow named Charlie Brown.  George is presently renowned as the scenic venue for big-ticket concerts located within just a few skips and furls of the stars and stripes above the venerable Columbia River.

Cap'n Gray would have missed all that, since he hardly got his ship inside the river's gaping mouth.  His Rediviva was built near Boston, in the shipbuilding mecca of Norbell, Massachusetts, in 1773, the same year the British Parliament granted its closest admirers a monopoly on East India tea.  And the rest is history--our own, of course.  Columbia Rediviva was named for, yes, the penultimately famous sea captain and Admiral of the Ocean Sea, the trinket-trader guy, Christopher Columbus.

So Columbia the River was named for a ship that was named for an admiral.  Columbia the District, not too surprisingly, but in a roundabout way, has a similar genealogical root.

Washington, D.C. is a district because the United States Constitution endows it as such in Section 8, right after the militia business.  The district, ten miles square, is envisioned as our forefathers' intended nubbin of government, the geopolitical center of a sparkling new republic that was puffed up gloriously now with visions of self-governing Americans drinking all the tea in China, save for what they might sell to the British.  But they didn't call their new capital D.C.  And they weren't even sure where to build it.  The Constitution left that part out.

Not long after whuppin' the red coats into submission at Yorktown, George Washington returned home to Mount Vernon on the Potomac in 1781.  He planned to retire there, but was persuaded by his admirers in 1787 to ride to Philadelphia where he would preside over the Constitutional Convention, which by the end of the year succeeded in adopting a bold new supreme law of the land.  Not eighteen months later, on April 30, 1789, Washington was sworn in--in New York City--as the first president.

One major task, of course, was to establish a capital.  Once the states agreed on a general location, George began the work of acquiring properties along the Potomac River between and among the fledgling cities of Alexandria and Georgetown.  The latter, founded in 1751, predated the president's rise to fame and was apparently named for its founders, two fellows both named George.  A second theory is that they named the town for King George II, whose son would later lose the American War of Independence.

Washington's work to define a district led to the creation of the new capital city in 1791, the City of Washington, which indeed was named for its best known servant.  Eighty years later, Congress subsumed the Cities of Georgetown and Washington, plus Washington County into a new District of Columbia, which even today is the official name of the American capital.  But if you had family or friends in Washington City or Washington County in 1891 and you wanted to send them a package, then, by George, you would send your package to Washington.  Just to be safe, you might follow with a comma and the letters D.C. or perhaps the words District of Columbia.  Soon, everyone came to know the place as Washington-comma-D.C., even if it doesn't officially exist.

Despite the endless growing pains to be experienced by a new nation, an important common denominator among its denizens was the notion that America was a great land.  It was even more than America, it was Columbia, a heroically symbolic name that gave nearly everyone the warm fuzzies.  In those years, the term Columbia was as patriotic and empowering as the word America is today.

So here I sit, as immersed in the namesake memories of Christopher and George as I was before I left the West Coast at the end of January.  Both their names and their contributions to history have become ubiquitous in American culture and geography, and both have wielded great influence well beyond the borders of America the North.  Most of us continue to regard them in a supremely dignified class, somewhat above the status of, say, a Stephen Colbert or the Big Lebowski.

I have to admit, though, that the memory of George Washington seriously permeates this place and you can almost sense the man's presence from day to day.  It's an interesting city of amazing architecture and rich history, with much to explore and discover, and not all of it scholarly, political or historic.  The cherry trees are just beginning to bloom, and I'm eager to extend my trail time beyond Rock Creek Park and the Capital Mall to the Great Falls of the Potomac and beyond to the Shenandoah, the Chesapeake, and warming beaches of the Atlantic.

It's been suggested that I share a few of my experiences and observations with the folks back home, which is what this blog's about.

I said I would explain about my sudden relocation here.  Let's just say I had a great job opportunity come up (as a recreation planner) and couldn't pass it up.  The work is nothing special to write about, but hopefully I'll find a few adventures that are.  Come to think of it, I already have.  I'll try to bring things up to date over the next few installments.  Join the blog, if you like.  I'd enjoy the conversation.

May your travels be emphatically skookum.

Ken