![]() I visualize a forest eventually prospering in the naturally rejuvenated soil. Were I able, I would return every decade for the next millennium… and beyond. No telling how many years more I will visit. Interestingly, if I assume I first ventured into the hills at age eight, I’ve watched the recovery for 60 years. I first saw the Clay Hills as a raw wound, apparent even to a kid. Even Clay Hills revert with time and protection to forest. I have observed often in these Posts that nothing in Nature is static. Examining the photo, I now have a desire to venture into those once-denuded hills to assess progress of recovery. The Clay Hills now sprout a few homes and an emerging forest. The approximately 1.5-mile distance belies the school’s size, a large three-story school. My high school is visible beyond that same dip as a flat-topped building with its smoke stack rising midway. I took the photo below from roughly the same spot looking east at least a hundred years later (November 2019). I can recall only that sumac ( Rhus typhina) and tree of heaven ( Ailanthus altissima) dominated the emerging vegetation. The shrubs had not fully captured the hillside. In my youth, shrub-cover had begun to colonize the hills, yet exposed red “soil” dominated the appearance. I recognized that such treatment of our Earth was hurtful and probably irreparable. Prior to any formal forestry and natural resources education and training, I observed that the terrain evidenced deep erosion gullies. I knew explicitly and intuitively as a youth that the land had been abused. I played in those hills, which we then called “The Clay Hills.” The image below depicts the hills as scarred and denuded, likely cut repeatedly for firewood, and perhaps even stripped for aggregate and clay to support residential and commercial development in the growing city. The high school I attended, built in the mid 1930s, now sits beyond the unidentifiable building top-center in the dip above the center casks. I grew up perhaps a quarter mile to the south (right) where the hills softened. The hills beyond rise a couple of hundred feet above the canal level. The view looks east over the terminus operations, including two canal boats, loading and unloading docks, and a lone mule. I snapped this terminus visitor’s center wall mural photograph (below), taken during the Canal’s peak operations well before 1924. Cumberland became its final destination after the enterprise met overwhelming competition from the railroads and ultimately succumbed to brutal flooding from the adjacent Potomac River in 1924. The original Canal planning brought the Canal to this point, and then built it up and over the Allegany front and onward to the Ohio River. I’ll begin with a view of Cumberland from my September visit. As is my Blog Post pattern, I will focus on Nature, and weave through the essay observations on the interplay of human and natural history. I now post another from visiting the C&O Canal National Historical Park: I offer a few photos and reflections from stopping by the western terminus at Cumberland, Maryland, my home town, and then enjoying an extend hike through the Paw Paw Tunnel and back over its Tunnel Hill Trail. NovemI published yet another, this one from a September visit to the C&O Canal National Historical Park. ![]() Add in two more Posts from visiting three National Parks in Kazakhstan. Parking is available at the Paw Paw Tunnel Campground.I issued multiple Posts this past summer and fall from July visits to National Parks, Monuments, and Memorials in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota. Following your travels through the tunnel, enjoy the two-mile long Tunnel Hill Trail where you can discover breathtaking views of the Paw Paw Bends. Today, when you plan your visit to the Paw Paw Tunnel, bring a flashlight and discover the weep holes, rope burns, rub rails, as well as brass plates marking every 100-feet that bring the tunnel’s history to life. The tunnel opened in October 1850 with rockslides continuing to be a challenge throughout the tunnel’s history. The tunnel ultimately required 14 years to complete due to labor issues and violence, funding shortfalls, work stoppages, and the challenges of digging a 3,118-foot tunnel through the hard, loose shale. ![]() When work began on the tunnel in 1836, the builders estimated the project would be completed within two years. To save building six miles of canal along the river, the C&O Canal Company decided to construct a tunnel through a steep topographic ridge now called Tunnel Hill. The Paw Paw Tunnel is one of the most significant engineering features on the Canal. ![]()
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