Kari Cannistraro Canal Community Story
We finally completed biking the C&O after 4 years! We have encountered dragon hunters, paw paw pickers, overpacked bike riders, sunflower fields, hikers seeking ‘pants on a line’ wildflowers, a red-bearded ghost, Batman’s cave, the stunning beauty of Great Falls, and ruins that look as if we are in Italy. With all our magical experiences on the C&O Canal, the most memorable experience is getting to know the folks that use the towpath.
Each one of us has had a different purpose and goal to accomplish. We have met travelers going on the entire C&O for 3 days or 6 days. We just do a day at a time and ride our bikes for about 25 miles back and forth in a particular area. This is our way of slowly getting to know the trail well with all its amazing stories.
While stopping at White’s Ferry for the pickle sandwich, we ran into a guy who was 35 miles into the bike ride and was ambitious to ride the whole trail but realized that stacking all his bags in front of the bike might not have been a good idea. The bags kept slipping off the front into the bike wheels. I still wonder if he made it.
We encountered some very colorful people who captured our attention. We ran into real dragon hunters. They were studying for a university and collecting dragon hunter shells. They are called dragon hunters because they hunt dragonflies. They had about 50 shells in a coffee can and said they were easy to find as they shed along the banks around the Monocacy aqueduct.
We stopped at the campsite for a drink when we ran into bike campers who were there just to see the wildflowers. One in particular was called the Dutchman's breeches. They really do look like little pants. They had been traveling for 8 days.
We met a park ranger in front of the Batman cave… oh, I mean the Killiansburg Cave, who gave us a short history of how people during the Civil War escaped battle by living in these caves.
Stopping in one of the canal towns, we learned from a local about a circus elephant that was buried in the front of a Churchyard.
But our finest moments have been just bike riding as best friends through the many miles of stunning beauty and telling stories (and some ghost stories, too) for our YouTube channel to encourage more people to get out and bike and see how much fun the C&O Canal towpath -- all 184.5 miles -- can be.