Biked from Meyersdale south to the Big Savage Tunnel. Still no word from the GAP panjandrums on when the tunnel will open. When I arrived at the rest stop a guy in his mid-twenties was just packing up his camping gear. He had spent the night at the rest stop. He wanted to continue south on the GAP and asked if I knew any detours around the tunnel. Actually I do. At Mile Post 23, less than half a mile from the rest stop, a steep road turns off to the right, if you are coming from the tunnel, and drops down to Shirley Hollow Road. This road crosses Laurel Run—a beautiful little babbling brook at this point—and proceeds another 2.2 miles (up 240 vertical feet) to the tiny hamlet of Pleasant Union on Route 160. Truly determined GAPers can take this route to travel from Pittsburgh or points east to Cumberland when the Big Savage Tunnel is closed. (For more on the detour see my Wanders on the Great Allegheny Passage: Frostburg to Garrett.) At the intersection of Route 160 and Shirley Hollow Road turn right. After .65 of a mile the road drops down the side of Big Savage Mountain 3.7 miles to the Mason-Dixon Line (1,282 vertical feet) at the village of Wellersburg. The famous surveyors Mason and Dixon camped near here in June of 1766, the furthest point west they surveyed that year. They would return the next year and continue the survey of the Maryland-Pennsylvania border westward.
In Maryland the road, now Maryland Route 47, continues another 1.7 miles to Barrelville, on Route 36, the Mount Savage Road, with a drop of another 200 vertical feet. Turn right here and proceed .6 of a mile to Woodcock Hollow Road. It’s another 1.6 of a mile up the road, with a vertical altitude gain of 303 feet, to the GAP at the Woodcock Hollow Road Crossing. From here you can proceed on the GAP to either Frostburg or Cumberland. Doing this trip in reverse, with the 5.6-mile climb up Big Savage Mountain from Barrelville to the Shirley Hollow Road cutoff, with a vertical altitude gain of 1516 feet, is certainly doable on electric bikes (I did it), but it would test the endurance of Olympian athletes on regular bikes. If you are traveling south and are hell-bent on getting to Cumberland as fast as possible this detour is 3.85 miles shorter than the GAP between the same two points (Shirley Hollow Road cutoff and the Woodcock Hollow Crossroads), eliminating as it does the big loop around Frostburg, You can also make excellent time flying down off Big Savage Mountain, your speed limited only by how fast you dare to go.
I told the young man it was possible to this but that I was not necessarily recommending that he try. This is fairly easy ride on electric bikes but the climb from Laurel Run up to Route 160 might be difficult for someone on a regular bike. Also, I did not know the current condition of Shirley Hollow Road, which is unpaved. It might still be muddy and difficult to navigate. The guy said he was going to try it, however. I hope he got through.
I walked up upstream on Laurel Run, the stream the GAP crosses just north of the tunnel. I was looking for golden saxifrage, blood root, and various trilliums, all among the first plants to appear in the Spring. I found nothing in bloom. Jack-in-the-Pulpits also occur here, although not of course until the end of spring and the beginning of Summer.
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| Laurel Run |
I rode back towards Meyersdale and was startled to see just before the Continental Divide several clumps of coltsfoot. I had scanned the right-of-way of the GAP very carefully riding south and they were not here when I passed by three hours earlier.
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| Coltsfoot |
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| Coltsfoot |
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| Coltsfoot |
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| Coltsfoot |
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| Coltsfoot |
These are the first flowers I have seen in bloom the GAP this year. Riding on I saw numerous clumps of coltsfoot the whole way to Meyersdale. None had been in bloom that morning. They had appeared in the space of three hours.
