Walking the Appalachian Trail in Maryland

For my inaugural interaction with the Maryland section of the Appalachian Trail, I wanted to hike the full 40.9 miles.

Easy by AT standards, Maryland is the perfect place to get acquainted with hiking the trail. In fact, there’s even a challenge to complete the entire section in one day. You begin before sunset and try to make it to either Pen Mar or Harpers Ferry before midnight. Intense. Insane? Maybe we’ll try it one day.

Having zero experience on the AT prior to deciding to go on this journey, Shane and I did some internet sleuthing and found this incredibly helpful guide for hiking the AT in MD. We followed it completely.

A few highlights regarding walking the AT in Maryland:
1) You’re supposed to stay/tent/camp in designated areas along the trail. We counted at least seven shelter options along the way, and made use of three: Ensign Cowall, Pine Knob, and Crampton Gap.

2) You’ll meet a ton of day hikers in certain areas: near the Washington Monument, near Annapolis Rocks, at the beginning near Pen Mar Park, and at the end at Harpers Ferry.

3) There is a train that leaves Harpers Ferry every day between 10 and 11:30, and it heads for D.C. Great link to the metro! There is limited parking at the north end, near the Mason Dixon line.

4) You’ll meet a ton of Boy Scouts. This is a preferred trail for scouts who want to pursue their 50 mile merit badge. They’re fast, I recommend moving out of the way if you see a group. But they’re friendly! We met four different scout troops.

5) Going north to south, one of the first challenges on the trail is a pretty gnarly incline. This is the worst of the whole trip, so if you can make it through climbing these rocks (no need to use your hands, it’s just steep and tests your pack weight), you’re set for the rest of the trip.

6) Also going north to south, about 2 miles before Weverton Cliffs, there’s a straight shot which looks great at first until you get to it. I like to refer to it as the ‘rock graveyard.’ There’s tons of tall grass that hides rocks – they’re staggered at every angle and will definitely test your shoes and patience. It ends, stick with it. I’ve heard most of the 220+ miles of the Pennsylvania portion of the AT are just like this.

I’m so glad we started our AT backpacking in Maryland. For logistics, we parked at the New Carrollton metro station (orange line), Shane’s mom picked us up and drove us the 1.5 hours to Pen Mar park (um, amazing).

We walked the trail, stayed a bonus night at a B&B in Harpers Ferry and then caught the daily train to the D.C. metro station. It went so smoothly.

Since we ended the trip on my birthday, we opted to splurge on a night at a local B&B. We stayed at the Stonehouse B&B which was just lovely!

We had the top floor room, which included a private bathroom. The other two rooms were booked, too, so we got to experience a full house. The owner was incredibly accommodating. And breakfast? Take a look at the photo on my instagram account (spoilers: there’s bacon).

The morning we had to grab the train, we walked to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, which has a headquarters in Harpers Ferry. This was one of my favorite moments, especially since I got the chance to see this large topographical map of the full Appalachian Trail. For fun, we took a picture of me pointing out the section of the trail we’d just completed. It covers about an inch of the full map. So many more miles to go!