Great Allegheny Passage

This post is meant to be purely informational: my husband and I struggled to find information on the Great Allegheny Passage—the bike trail that goes from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Cumberland, Maryland, connecting with the C&O which takes you from Cumberland to DC.

The most useful information we found was on another cyclist’s blog, so I am going to return the favor and (hopefully) help other cyclists trying to figure out what to pack and how to prepare. Feel free to contact me through this blog if you want further information.

First, let’s start with the GAP website: www.atatrail.org. Don’t bother emailing these guys to ask for information—they won’t answer. However, if you call their number, weave through the automated phone maze, and leave a message with your name and address, they will mail you “trail information”. This information includes the free map you can pick up anywhere along the GAP or C&O and a bunch of promotional material advertising the general area of Pennsylania through which the GAP trail runs. The promotional material actually is fairly useful—the advertisements tell you what businesses are where. The free map is plenty sufficient.

Second, the trail doesn’t go from Pittsburgh to Cumberland. The part from Pittsburgh to McKeesport, scheduled to be completed in 2006, has not yet been completed. This critical tidbit of information is surprisingly difficult to confirm. The trail really wants you to believe that it has been completed.

Third, until they have fully completed the trail to Pittsburgh, don’t start in McKeesport; start 3 miles down the trail in Boston. I don’t have anything against McKeesport as a town, but the trail in it really hasn’t been completed. Getting from McKeesport to Boston involves some terrible hills on narrow, bumpy pavement and a harrowing crossing of a busy 55 mph two-lane highway, with blind curves each way. It’s not a pleasant beginning: until the trail is fully done, do yourself the favor of starting in Boston.

Fourth, don’t worry about water. My husband and I did this trip in a very chilly week in October. We carried roughly 6 liters of water (3 liter water bottles and a three-liter camelback strapped in a dry bag on a bike). We never needed to dip into the camelback—we were able to cross a town, or a water pump, or something to replenish our bottles. I would still recommend carrying about 2 – 3 per person, but we never worried about not being able to make it before the next place with available water. I also wouldn’t recommend bringing a water pump. You’re along a river all the way, but the banks are almost always steep and, with knees stiff from many miles of biking, getting down the cliff to the water would be unpleasant. Also, there really weren’t many places where, once down, you could perch safely to pump.

Fifth, don’t worry about camping. There are lots of campgrounds right on the trail, and even more if you want to go a mile or so off. The campgrounds were mostly primitive, but very nice: running water, clean pit toilets, etc. Here is some more detail:

• Cedar Creak Park: there are individual sites right after the group Boy Scout camping. They’re nice, but this campground is pretty damp so be prepared for that. There are both pit and flush toilets; water is available and tastes good—we assumed that it was town water of some sort because it didn’t taste strongly of minerals or dirt.
• Roundbottom Campground: primitive sites, nice looking
• Ohiopyle Campground: we saw this, but don’t remember in too much detail.
• Confluence: there’s a commercial campground right off the trail (Outflow Campground). It costs $5 per person in the hiker/biker section. Flush toilets, but no hot water (my husband says there is hot water in the showers in the men’s bathroom; there wasn’t in the women’s). Water at this campground tastes mildly of dirt—either put up with it, mix with Gatorade, buy water in town, or ask a restaurant to fill your bottles for you.
• Rockwood: the campground is just past the town, but the registration seems to be in town. I can’t recommend the town, but the campground is amazing. Primarily because each site had covered wood, protected from the rain. My husband and I would have paid almost anything for dry wood on this trail: we were freezing, and much of the available wood was wet. Note: the 17 or so miles from Confluence to Rockwood are longer and harder than you’d expect—the grade gets much steeper from Confluence to the Divide, so if you’re planning on getting in another 20 miles before bed, take this into account.
• Frostburg: we didn’t check out this campground—we were high with the thrill of flying downhill at 25 mph. However, we’ve been to the town before and really like it: it’s more successfully revitalized than many of the economically depressed towns along the GAP and C&O.
• Cumberland: that is a YMCA campground about 1 mile out of town. Ask at the bike shop at the start of the C&O for directions. In fact, ask the man that owns that bike shop anything: he is the single most informative man in the planet, and one of the kindest. The tourist information in Cumberland, despite many signs and lots of promotions, is really short on information; the bike shop man makes up for it. This campground is pretty expensive: $10 per person.

Sixth: food. As with the C&O, you need to bring about half your necessary calories with you: nutrition bars, oatmeal, anything else that is easy to carry or cook. However, there are consistent food options. A caveat before this section: My husband and I are vegetarian, so the food report is prejudiced. I’m sure carnivores can find many more options. We didn’t stop in every town, but here are the highlights:

• Hometown Diner in Connellsville. Food is great, the place is packed, and the music selection is much better than decent. It’s a little difficult to find, because Connellsville is in the process of rebuilding the part where the trail connects to the town, but the diner is right across the river, in a rundown shopping center on the right. The bathroom has heated water to wash your hands (as cold as we were, this is important), and a generous supply of soap (also crucial). My only criticism of the Hometown Diner is that the waitresses are not quite as eager to refill your coffee mug as they should be. There is an independent pharmacy right next to the Hometown Diner where you can pick up anything you need. If you get to Connellsville later in the day, the downtown looked like it had several great local bars; you can get $1.50 draft beers during Steelers’ games.
• Ohiopyle: had several restaurants that were very biker and vegetarian friendly. We weren’t yet hungry, so we just got coffee to try to warm up. But I definitely think you can count on Ohiopyle for food; however, according to the coffee shop owner, many of the businesses in Ohiopyle are seasonal, so don’t count on them in February.
• Confluence: there are several restaurants in Confluence, but they all close at unaccountable times (perhaps some of this was attributable to the fact that we arrived at the Grand Finale of the local Pumpkin Festival, featuring a parade with all the firetrucks from the towns in the surrounding 100 mile radius and square dancing tractors). However, I would highly recommend ignoring all the other restaurants and heading straight for the Lucky Dog Café. This estimable restaurant has it all: wonderfully conceived and executed food, coffee/tea, beer, Gatorade, and a limited but complete bar. The couple that owns it also turns their old grease into biodiesel fuel which they use in their car and to heat their home. They make their own veggie burgers, and they are easily among the best we have ever had. Their carnivore options also looked really good. Note: the town of Confluence has several bridges over the Youghiogheny. The trail goes over the second bridge; this is not immediately obvious. The first bridge makes you bike around a difficult to navigate rotary of flowers—let this be a sign to you that you are going over the wrong bridge.
• Rockwood: we ate here but I would not recommend doing so. Unless you want baked goods, the food available at the only place to eat in town (the Mill Shoppes), is terrible. However, we were hungry enough not to notice how terrible the food was until we were almost finished, so if you’re desperate, Rockwood is there. There also is a bike shop that has snacks, but they are open only occasionally. If you want them to be open when you are there, you can call the posted numbers. We didn’t this to verify it worked.
• Meyersdale: if you can make it to Meyersdale before you eat, do it. The food options here are great, and the town is much less depressing (they’d even gotten some stimulus money to rebuild roads and sidewalks: sign of some civic initiative). You can leave your bike safely at the train station/visitor center at the top of town.
• Frostburg: again, we didn’t stop here, but the town has lots of options
• Cumberland: we ate a pile of food at El Canelo—it has a ton of vegetarian options. There also is a Chinese place. Carnivore options are unlimited in Cumberland.


Seventh, ignore the ridiculous claim on all the literature that the GAP trail grade is never above 1.5%. It is. The part from Confluence to the Eastern Continental Divide is particularly tiring. I am small, a long-distance runner, and (as a cyclist) a hill climber; my husband is larger and (as a cyclist) a sprinter. We represent the available range of cyclists, and the hill was rough on both of us. There is never a break where you can rest your legs. I enjoyed the challenge, but heavily loaded it was still exhausting. Be prepared for this, or adjust to fewer miles a day (we did about 60 a day). Going from the Divide to Cumberland is a blast; I would not recommend going from Cumberland to the Divide if you’re heavily loaded. Not burdened with sleeping bags, tent, winter clothes, and food for a week, it would be a fun training run.

I’m not going to continue with the C&O. There is plenty of information about this trail. I would only recommend that, if you plan on biking on the C&O during Fall, you take into account what the season’s name implies. Be prepared for treacherous collections of walnuts, at a minimum. If you have a 24 hour windstorm, like we did, the trail becomes hazardous and stressful.