RailTrailWxRailTrailWx
E-bikingBikingWalkingRunningHikingBirdingKayakingand more
The Antietam segment carries the towpath sixty-four miles from Harpers Ferry to Hancock, through the Great Valley and past some of the most fought-over ground in the country. The riding is rail-grade flat on hard-packed dirt, gaining only about two hundred feet end to end. Shepherdstown, Williamsport and Hancock sit along the way, and Fort Frederick State Park and the Antietam battlefield lie just off the path. At Big Slackwater the canal ran in the river itself, and the rebuilt towpath there hugs the cliff on concrete. The Piedmont segment continues east from Harpers Ferry and the Paw Paw segment runs west from Hancock.
C & O Canal Towpath: Antietam
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the C & O Canal Towpath: Antietam has about 121 to 166 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, birding, e-biking, running, biking, and walking, with April, May, and October the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the C & O Canal Towpath: Antietam!
In half of past years, color along the C & O Canal Towpath: Antietam peaks October 24 to November 3, typically around October 29. The trail has 34% deciduous coverage, with the majority being white oak, chestnut oak, yellow-poplar, red maple, and black oak.
George Washington founded the Potowmack Company in 1785 to make the Potomac navigable. It built five skirting canals around the worst falls, good for floating down but not for hauling up. Its holdings passed to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company in 1824. President John Quincy Adams turned the first spadeful on July 4, 1828. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad broke ground the same day, and the two fought in court over the narrow riverbank between Point of Rocks and Harpers Ferry before agreeing to share it. The canal reached Cumberland on October 10, 1850, and five boats brought down 491 tons of coal that first day. The railroad had beaten it there by eight years, so the canal stopped at Cumberland and never crossed the Alleghenies. Mules towed the boats, often driven by children, and seventy-four lift locks raised them 605 feet above tidewater. An 1889 flood forced the company into receivership, and the railroad came to control it through its bonds. The March 1924 flood ended navigation. The United States acquired the canal in 1938. Justice William O. Douglas walked the whole towpath in March 1954 to stop a proposed parkway, and Congress made it a National Historical Park on January 8, 1971. This segment runs from Harpers Ferry through Shepherdstown and Williamsport to Hancock. At Big Slackwater the cliffs left no room for a canal, so boats ran in the river behind Dam 4, and that towpath was rebuilt on concrete and reopened in October 2012.
Western Maryland Rail TrailAppalachian TrailPotomac Heritage National Scenic Trail
