To D.C. - SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
by Word on the Trail guest correspondent Sara
Matt and I met up with Mona and Pablo on the last day of their Pittsburgh to DC C&O/GAP Trail adventure. We asked them a few questions about their trip so far over lunch in White’s Ferry.
I asked them about the best part of the trail so far. “Ohiopyle,” Mona said. “It was the most difficult but also the most enjoyable.” She said at one point a deer was running alongside them on the trail. Pablo remarked on all the Tulip Trees and Honeysuckles during this part of the trip. “We would just be hit with delicious Honeysuckle smells periodically.” he said. Mona said the fallen flower petals from the Tulip Trees were lining their path.
When prompted about their favorite animal spotting along the trail, they said the baby Alligator Snapping Turtle had to be the best.
I wanted to know if there were any challenging days. “Definitely the second day.” Mona said. “Leading up to the trip we kept hearing that the trail is mostly flat, but it’s not.” The second day included a steady .5% incline for pretty much the entire day. It may not seem like a lot but when it’s over the course of sixty miles with no respite it really adds up, they said.
The other thing that was challenging? The junk food. Leading up to the trip, “we thought it would be fun to eat junk food every day.” Mona said. It wasn’t. They were both sick of junk food early into the trip. “I don’t want to eat another gummy for a month.” Pablo shared. They did have one really good meal at a barbecue spot in Williamsport. They loved the collard greens and fresh lemonade. As an aside, a lot of their planned food spots were closed by the time they arrived at their destination due to a late start (more on that later) so it seems like a lot of their meals were gummy bears.
I asked if they had learned anything new about each other since it seemed like a fun, but intense experience. They both laughed for a long time. “Nothing new,” Mona said. “But we had a lot of manifestations of things we already knew about each other.”
They proceeded to share a story about their Harper’s Ferry hotel – booked by Pablo. This was one of the points of the trip where Mona noted they transcended the political divide while relying on the kindness of strangers. The booked hotel was inaccessible via bike and required time on the highway. Thankfully a kind stranger gave them a lift back to the trail. “The crazy thing is that after walking on the highway to get to the hotel we were told we didn’t have a room.” Pablo said. “I had booked the room for March 2nd.”
Mona shared that she “learned to let people pass her,” during the trip. With one exception. A peloton of about 50 highschoolers were biking behind them. They had dismounted to walk their bikes as per the instruction of a sign. Some dickhead came up to them and told them that “it probably wasn’t a good idea to walk since there are about fifty people coming up behind you.” Two minutes later… they see this guy walking his bike too. The next couple of miles they went full speed ahead to make sure that the peloton didn’t pass them, at one point even cutting their gummy break short.
I asked Pablo if he learned anything about himself. “I’m just built different,” he said. “Yeah.” Mona said. “He doesn’t eat. I need fuel to do something like this, but he’d rather sleep an extra hour than eat breakfast.”
Would they do it again? “Yeah.” Mona said before I even finished asking. “But..” Pablo said, “We might do it differently.” They said that if they did it again, they’d likely just do the GAP portion of the trail as an out and back. The GAP trail was apparently the much better half of the trail. Pablo also said they would build in more time for breaks and recreation. Hot tip, if they did it again, they think it would be more fun to do 40- to 50-mile days rather than the 60-mile days that they were putting in.
Another hot tip Pablo shared as we were heading out from lunch. “Bring a battery.”
Hotel highlight: Fairfield Marriott with Connellsville B&B as a close second.
Hotel lowlight: Meyersdale. However, the two 14-year-olds that upsold Mona on two scoops of ice cream were amazing.
All in all the duo was in good spirits when we intercepted them and seemed to be having a very memorable adventure. Though Mona made us all laugh when she said that she asked herself a couple of times why they were choosing to spend their holiday this way.
Some other notable moments of the day for Matt and me: The baby geese literally littering the side of the canal, four blue heron spottings, a seemingly infinite number of turtle spottings, and getting to spend an amazing day bike riding with Mona and Pablo. Another favorite moment, Mona eating not one but two mystery berries because “the first one tasted weird.” (Thankfully they were mulberries .)
