C&O Canal

The same weekend that the Boy Scouts went to Antietam, we also did a short C&O Canal hike.  Since my uncle wasn’t there yet, I was in charge of leading the scouts and stopping at important areas.  The C&O Canal is a beautiful walking trail that is completely flat.  This is because the canals had to be level in order for them to work.  We stopped at a few places around the visitor’s center, and then headed to see Falling Waters.  Falling Waters is a small Civil War battlefield where Union and Confederate forces had an engagement.  Since it was next to the river where there was a small waterfall, they called it Falling Waters.  Our map showed that the hike was only supposed to be 7 miles one way which the scouts have done many times without any problem.  However, the map was wrong and a GPS proved that it was actually 13 miles one way.  So our 14 mile hike quickly turned into a 26 mile hike all to see a sign.  This is a picture from one of the breaks that we had taken.  On our way back, we realized that we were not going to get to Antietam in time to have our campsite registration so a leader and myself decided to run the last 2 miles or so.  We made it to the trucks, over to the battlefield, and back again just to see the beginning of the troop emerging out of the woods.  We all slept very well that night.