Section 5: Havre de Grace to Glen Cove Marina

February 20, 2012
Havre de Grace, MD, to Glen Cove Marina, MD
section miles: 16 total miles: 56.0

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I'm falling a bit behind on the trail notes and am trying to quickly get caught up here. My memory these days is solid for a good, oh, two hours, and it's been almost two weeks since we walked the leg from Havre de Grace to Glen Cove, so forgive me if I get the experience all jumbled up.

The hikes are starting to get more difficult. Not just the walking, mind you, but the getting up before the sunrise to shuttle cars to the drop offs, a good hour and a half away at this point. Miss Organization has her things packed and ready, maps fully annnotated, and GPS programmed about five days in advance. Naturally, I prefer the more manly approach of falling out of bed and stumbling around bleary-eyed in the dark to collect my gear the morning of, much to her chagrin. But the fact remains that this was the most difficult section yet. Ups and downs along the steep (and long) hills flanking the Susquehanna river for roughly sixteen miles over eight hours into a headwind left us exhausted and stumbling to the finish. I'm still incredulous about that 2 MPH pace, but I'm also resigned to scientific fact at this point. On the bright side, we're pausing often to take in all the sights and sounds, which is a convenient excuse to lean heavily our trekking poles until our hearts stop pounding. It ain't exactly an assault on Mt. Everest, but we did pass one sign that said, in big red letters, "Susquehanna Ridge Trail... Extremely Difficult", complete with two black diamonds for added emphasis.

The section began with a relatively nice stroll out of Havre de Grace along a rail-to-trail section, save for the seemingly requisite encounter with a man-eating dog. We knew we were in trouble when we spotted a 100-lb rottweiler literally stalking us, dragging his owner behind. Passing by, it was all the guy could do to keep this dog under control as it snarled and jumped and twisted to get at us. Thankfully, our instant religious conversion worked and the leash held. Later in the day we shuffled meekly past a camouflaged crew tethered to a pit bull the size of a small moose. Not sure what all these people are afraid of... each other, I guess. A dog arms race in northern Maryland.

Not too far out of town you hit your first challenge - clambering hand-and-foot up a boulder-strewn hillside that likely has some relationship with a nearby quarry. A wide swing of road-walking takes you west around the quarry, eventually returning to some spectacular vistas overlooking the Susquehanna river across from Port Deposit. From there you drop down to the beautiful Rock Run Historic area, site of a 200-year old grist mill and former toll house right on the river. It is from here that you launch off on the aforementioned Ridge Trail, which, to be honest, is not really "Extremely Difficult"... it's just "Uphill". You're on the ridge for a few miles, then you drop down to the tow path along the river below the Conowingo dam. Swing west around the dam, and you start your ascent once again to the top of ridgeline.

Up and down and up again. For miles. You're getting the gist of this section. But make no mistake - it's fabulous. Great views of the river, picturesque fields, interesting historic buildings, challenging rock scrambles, and plenty of long stretches through quiet woods make it a delight. We spotted bald eagles and rafts of wintering ducks along the river. On the ridge we jumped a herd of deer that must have been 40 or 50 strong - the forest literally shook from all the commotion.

With fond memories and fading strength we finally tumbled our way down the last hill into Glen Cove marina to our waiting car, and then back to Havre de Grace for some pizza. We bought an extra large, thinking we'd take some home to our neglected nestling, but alas, ramen noodles for him. Turns out one pizza is no match for eight hours of hill climbing.

Postscript
It took us several days to recover from this adventure, and we made the mental note that sixteen miles is about as much as we care to tackle in a single day. The ups and downs are hard on your joints, and we creaked around for a while with sore muscles to boot. I mentioned the trekking poles... as ridiculous as that may sound for a day hike in the mid-Atlantic, they are very helpful, particularly on a section like this one. They absorb some of the joint-shock of the downhill, steady you on the steeper pitches of the uphill, and are invaluable for keeping your footing and balance while fording the occasional stream.

What in Blue Blazes?

Embarrassed astonishment is as close as I can describe it. One day after hiking the Perryville to North East section, our official, latest-n-greatest maps finally arrived in the mail. "You're not going to believe this," Rene chuckled, "but you know that railroad section? It's not there anymore. We were supposed to hike down a greenway." No way. I snatched the map from her hand, and sure enough, there it was - descriptions of hiking past historic taverns and looking back over your shoulder for grand views of the Susquehanna river. We had looked over our shoulders alright, but it was to keep from getting splatted by a train. Do it again? Uh, no. Well... maybe.



Our neighbors Robi and Linda dropped by and left us with a nice gift of encouragement: a copy of Walkin' the Line by William Ecenbarger. The author follows the actual Mason-Dixon line, from east to west, over some 365 miles of its length. Interesting topic, and we're anxious to dig into this book while we wait for the next hiking day to arrive. But here's a point about the Mason-Dixon Trail that isn't immediately obvious, given the name: it is only marginally associated with the Mason-Dixon line itself, and doesn't coincide. The trail concept originated with Robert Yost, a chemist with the Getty Oil Co. and former head trail maintainer for the Wilmington Trail Club. Originally called the Brandywine-Susquehanna Trail, it was eventually renamed the Mason-Dixon trail for brevity, and for the fact that it crossed the Mason-Dixon line several times on its way from Chadd's Ford to Whiskey Springs.

A nice history of the trail was published by the Mason-Dixon Trail System in their October 2011 Bulletin.

Section 4: North East to Perryville

February 5, 2012
North East, MD, to Perryville, MD
section miles: 12.5 total miles: 40.0

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Today we reached the Susquehanna river, at the head of Chesapeake Bay in Perryville, MD, about 40 miles from our front door. Rene and I have this mental map of our local geography that says once we cross the Susquehanna, we're out of our backyard. Of course, that mental map was drawn by car, barreling down I-95 toward Baltimore with not quite enough time to squeeze in a full CD of music before you cross the bridge. Now, after having walked it, we have a whole new appreciation of just how far that is.

The section from Northeast to Perryville comes with an emphatic warning from the Mason Dixon Trail System: The section between Perryville and North East, MD... is not recommended for casual hikers. ~3 miles is along an active rail line with a trestle. Much of the rest is undergoing rapid development. With that comforting thought in mind, we decided to walk eastbound (starting at Perryville) to put the track section behind us early, and with the (false) hope that the wind would be at our back this time.

As it turns out, the track hike was not too bad. Only one train lumbered by in the two hours we were on the rail line, and we were pleasantly surprised by the quiet woods and fields we passed through - we were expecting something more industrial. You often look down on either side into woods with streams and beaver ponds, and occasionally pass by some substantial rock outcrops. We even jumped a couple of deer at one point. But make no mistake, walking on or along the tracks can be difficult, largely due to the bed of crushed, loose stone. We found that walking directly down the middle of the track provided the most solid footing, but this approach also tended to stymie our conversation. "I think I hear a train. Did you hear a train?"

After two hours of this we started to get concerned. We knew we weren't making great time, but two hours to go three miles? No way. Eventually we came to a road overpass, and scrambled up through the briars to get our bearings. Not far down the road was a small cluster of country homes, and after steeling our nerves a bit, we knocked on the most promising door for directions. A very gracious young woman answered and cheerfully provided some answers. It turns out we had missed our turn off a mile back, but we were only a short jaunt up the road from where the trail intersected.

From there the trail followed a telephone right-of-way through some sopping wet woods and across a couple of subdivisions, before joining up with a barely-recognizable dirt road. This road passed by and through some of the toughest-looking neighborhoods yet. Abandoned everything-you-can-imagine lined the trail - and in some cases was on the trail. Boys roared around empty lots in 4-wheelers as if on a mission to grind every last shred of vegetation into the mud. Big, muscular dogs strained at us, chained by the neck with links that would hold a grizzly bear (thankfully!). Tough guys milled about here and there among piles of old tires and rusty vehicles. But in the midst of all this we met a man and woman working on the edge of the woods, where the trail passed through, shoveling, raking, tossing trash into a pile. "We're trying to clean up around here," the woman said. God bless 'em.

The trail continued on for a short stretch on some roads, then followed North East creek into town. The creek, like many we've seen so far, had its moments of surprising beauty, considering how closely the pall of commercialism has encroached. Our maps had us crossing the creek on the east side of town, but the bridge was washed out (as in, completely gone), so we backtracked our way right down main street and directly into... Woody's Crab House. I mean, come on, you're walking right by, you gotta stop.

Section 3: Elkton to Northeast

January 29, 2012
Elkton, MD, to Northeast, MD
section miles: 11.5 total miles: 27.5

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At long last we have maps in hand, and had decent enough weather to head out again, leaving Meadow Park in Elkton around 10:00 am and arriving in Northeast, MD around 4:00 pm. I'm not sure where the time went, but averaging less than two miles an hour? It must be all the photo and snack breaks coupled with all the back-tracking to find the trail, because we are most assuredly hiking at a brisk pace when we're on the move. Perhaps our mileage estimates are wrong, but we take those directly from the MDT web site.

Our maps came hand-delivered this week, courtesy of Bob - a very kind, elderly gentleman who is a volunteer with the MDT and lives not far from us in Newark. Having Bob miss our driveway by a good six feet and park his car on the lawn seemed like a reasonable trade-off for this quick response to our request for maps. I mentioned to Bob that his front tire was flat, and then we sent him off with our best wishes and "hope to see you on the trail" goodbyes.

This section began with a short few blocks through downtown Elkton, which is nice, then past the crumbling edges of town onto country roads. We met a couple of boys dragging a rather large puppy away from a frenzied, fenced collection of mongrels. "What do we have here?", we asked. "Half Chesapeake Bay retriever, half pit bull", they responded proudly. Ah. Leave it to Elktonites to invent a breed that can maul you underwater.

The trail takes you down some country roads which are nice enough and afford an occasional glimpse of the bay, but as you would expect in these parts, have no shoulder to walk on, and what little there is is littered with trash. Trucks, SUVs and old muscle cars roar by with enough frequency to keep you jumping from pavement to berm. Resonating from various directions is the seemingly never-ending bark of dogs. I noticed one elderly resident peeking out from behind the curtains, and imagined her to be on constant watch should any socialists decide to take up residence in her neighborhood.

At the end of the road trek you make your way past a couple of church revival camps and then you're into Elk Neck State Forest. And what a remarkable change it is. For the next several miles - the majority of this section - you are hiking through a relatively young hardwood forest with the occasional stand of white pine. The understory is remarkably open - so much so that it was often difficult to follow the trail, given that it was buried under a thick carpet of leaves and blended right in with the rest of the forest floor. Fortunately, in the most difficult spots, the trail maintainers have done an excellent job marking the way. Excellent, but not perfect - we still managed to wander off on what looked like "the" trail many times, only to back-track when we failed to notice any blazes after ten minutes of walking.

As you reach the other side of the State Forest, you begin to pick up the rural outskirts of Northeast, MD, with all their friendly reminders to not trespass nor even so much as cast your gaze upon the rusting hulks of machinery and piles of not-sure-what gracing their property. The Cecil County landfill apparently feels obligated to post no-trespassing signs on every other tree for the duration of the trail boundary (okay, we get it... no trespassing... which is a shame, because I was so looking forward to hiking through a landfill). But that quickly gives way to a short, nice stretch of wildlife sanctuary, then you pop out of the woods along cemetery road in Northeast.

Our motivational plan all along was to hit Woody's Crab House for dinner as our reward for six hours on the trail, but they were closed for a special event. A quick change of plans led us over to Pier 1 where we feasted on crab ravioli, steak and fried shrimp. Highly recommended when you're in town!

Socked In

Our next leg - Elkton, MD to Northeast, MD - was put on hold again this week due to inclement weather and lack of maps. Ordering maps from the MDT organization is a bit of a black-box, snail-mail operation... hard to tell if anyone is on the receiving end and no idea if and when they'll be shipped.

A mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow hit northern Delaware Friday night into Saturday, leaving a crusty, white carpet on the landscape. We took the opportunity to hit the gym, and then I ventured out on a whim to crunch may way around the David English Trail, a couple-mile loop in White Clay Creek state park. Beautifully quiet in the woods today. White-throated sparrows hopped around the underbrush and seemed unusually tolerant of my presence - I could almost reach out and touch them on occasion. Chickadees and titmice chittered about, and the occasional cardinal glowed like a lightbulb against the white background. I managed to get a distant, fuzzy pic of a pileated woodpecker working his way around a dead tree. It's not unusual to see or hear pileateds around here, but I don't often get close enough for a picture.

Trail Wandering - Northbound

The weather this weekend cooperated for only 50% of our team - bright and clear, but below freezing with a chilling north wind. We agreed to put the AT trek on hold for a week, hoping for a minor thaw. In the meantime, I got antsy and decided to hike the MDT north from Newark toward Landenburg, PA. I had hoped to make it all the way to Chadd's Ford, but without maps I eventually found myself wandering hopelessly down former farm roads now encroached by McMansions, getting blown off the two-inch shoulder with every passing SUV as I peered down the road for any sign of a blue blaze. After a couple miles of road-walking I gave up and returned back the way I came.

The MDT trail through the White Clay Creek preserve in Delaware and Pennsylvania is beautiful, however, at any time of year. We've hiked this many times, but there's always something new to catch your eye. Today I noticed a beaver dam that I don't recall... but it's probably been there for years. Just for grins I packed my stove so I could boil up a hot lunch on a gravel bar, but freezing numb fingers quickly turned this into an exercise of speed-cooking. Never a good sign when you can sit and watch ice form while you're eating lunch.

I'm not going to count the miles I did this weekend, since I was just fooling around, but they totaled somewhere around 14 miles over two days. The map image shows how much of the trail we've covered so far, with my northbound extension tacked on. The blue markers identify the section end-points. At this scale, it seems like a fair amount, but if you were to see the entire map of the MDT, we've done just a smudge. No matter, they'll start to add up eventually.

Section 2: Elkton to Newark

January 8, 2012
Elkton, MD to Newark, DE
section miles: 9.5 total miles: 16.0

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The starting point for today was Meadow Park in Elkton, MD, heading back toward Newark, DE. This park is situated on the floodplain of Big Elk Creek, and the first mile or so of the hike followed the south bank upstream. Flood deposits were everywhere, from piles of flotsam to substantial sand bars and downed trees. It was difficult to follow the trail, and we bush-whacked for a while before eventually stumbling back on the blue-blazed path. Rene spotted a fox on the opposite bank standing up on its hind legs to get a better look at us, and after a little observation we noticed that there were actually two foxes having a little morning wrastle. A few steps further on we jumped a great blue heron wading in the creek. Signs of an ambitious beaver were everywhere - he seemed to fancy the biggest trees he could get his teeth on, but apparently was easily distracted and never finished the job.

We soon passed by a pond with a skim of ice, and a bit further on came to a large field of rectangular, earthen water reservoirs as the trail wandered further from the creek. Most were empty. Perhaps the water supply for the city of Elkton? (Edit: this is apparently a fish hatchery.) Past another frozen pond, then a scramble up a surprisingly steep, tall bank and we were finally above the floodplain.








After a relatively short jaunt through the woods the trail dumped us out into our first subdivision. This was challenging, to say the least. The trail markers are painted on the curbs, when you can find them... and that’s the challenge. It’s particularly tricky when the trail crosses a road. After spilling out of the subdivision, we had to wander up and down a very busy road looking for any sign of the trail picking up on the other side. At one point we found a blue marker in the side yard of a beat-up looking auto repair shop - either that, or some guy who collected lots of broken, derelict cars - with a friendly “No Trespassing” sign posted right above the blaze. And it was not terribly obvious where the trail went from there. We steeled our nerves, preparing to be yelled at, and strolled quickly through the yard, past a couple rusting heaps and a “Beware of Dog” sign. A couple very well-hidden, questionably faded blue blazes further on in the bushes gave us hope we were on the right path, but we wondered if this was an old path that had been re-routed. Behind the auto shop we came to some town houses, and again had to walk through somebody’s side yard, hoping we were still on the right path. At that point we had no idea where the trail went. We walked up the road in front of the town houses, but saw nothing, so decided to forge on across the street through another field marked “No Trespassing - City of Elkton”. As we neared a gas line we finally found some blazes, but again, they looked suspiciously faded.


The questionable path eventually dumped us out into a high-voltage power line easement, and bright blue slashes assured us that we were on the official trail again. The trail followed the power lines for several miles. Somewhere near the beginning of that stretch we crossed into Delaware, and towards the end we had a difficult time trying to find the trail at the point where it leaves the power line easement. We spent many minutes wandering around separately in the woods looking for any sign of a trail at all, eventually stumbling upon the right path through a pleasant (but very wet) woodland and into our second subdivision, then emerging onto Old Baltimore Pike across the street from Iron Hill Park.

The Iron Hill walk was wonderful. Excellent trail and a beautiful small park. By strikingly random concidence, we met a group of middle-aged hikers heading south and learned that they too were intending to hike the entire Mason Dixon Trail. They had started in Pennsylvania and were working on their third segment.

Crossing over I-95 from Iron Hill, it was a short jaunt through another small neighborhood, then down the hill to Rittenhouse Park to finish up the segment.

Trekkie Notes
The trail east of Elkton can be very difficult to follow. We promptly decided that we need to buy trail maps - depending on well marked blazes is clearly hit or miss. Low-lying areas adjacent to Big Elk Creek have substantial flood deposits to negotiate, and I think we were off the trail much of the time. The neighborhoods you pass through seem safe enough, but there are a few areas where we kept our eyes peeled for potentially aggressive dogs and property owners. Hiking along the power lines is a tad unnerving, with a constant electric buzz in the background, and a nagging sense that utility company security might show up at any moment to investigate. Four-wheel ATVs tracks are coincident with the trail in many places. In short, a mixed section with a few nice stretches and a few dodgy stretches.