Great American Trail - Washington DC - Washington State The Great American Rail-Trail is the most ambitious biking initiative this country has ever seen. Stretching an extraordinary 3,700 miles from the nation’s capital across 12 states to the Pacific Ocean, west of Seattle, it’s an idea that’s been ruminating for 50 years. The Rail-Trail will connect more than 125 existing multiuse paths, greenways, trails and towpaths. An official route was announced to the public in May 2019 by the Railsto-Trails Conservancy (RTC), the Washington DC-based nonprofit leading the effort, when the trail was already more than half completed. The trail is largely built atop or next to abandoned railway lines (hence the name) with surfaces ranging from crushed stone to smooth asphalt. These railbanks – abandoned railway corridors converted into trails – account for more than 24,000 miles of multiuse trails crisscrossing the US. Once it is fully completed – estimated to be before 2040 – almost one in six Americans will live within 50 miles of the route, and it will offer an unparalleled experience of the country people can’t see from 36,000 feet or through a car window. The timing couldn’t be better. According to an RTC study, in spring, trail use across the US spiked by 200%, in large part due to the coronavirus pandemic. With team sports and gyms mostly off people’s minds now and for the foreseeable future, the boom in outdoor, physically distanced activities such as cycling and hiking is expected to last for years. On the East Coast, the trail starts in downtown DC, passing a stone’s throw from the Smithsonian Museums and the National Mall before heading northwest across Maryland. There, hikers and cyclists can overnight at a series of 19th-century lockhouses along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, an Industrial Revolution marvel that played a pivotal role in providing troops’ supplies during the Civil War. In the 1800s, these buildings were home to lockkeepers who collected canal tolls on the Appalachian lumber and coal that helped fuel US westward expansion. Following the C & O Canal, the trail then enters the Great Allegheny Passage passing over the Eastern Continental Divide and descending through small towns in Pennsylvania onward to Pittsburgh. For those heading west, the trail passes through the heart of Ohio’s Swartzentruber Amish country, a community that completely eschews modern technology and continues to speak Pennsylvania German as their first language. In hollowed-out Rust Belt towns fighting
to get back on their feet, the echoes of thriving manufacturing communities once linked by rail in southwest Pennsylvania and Indiana tell the story of boom-andbust capitalism. Further west, the trail crosses the Mississippi River that famously inspired Mark Twain and has long shaped US history and culture at Moline, Illinois, before spanning the Continental Divide in Montana. In Idaho, encounters with moose and other wildlife aren’t uncommon along the historic Coeur d’Alene trail that was carved out of mountainous rock by gold prospectors seeking their fortune in the mid19th century. Nearing the route’s end, the ferry trip crossing the Puget Sound in Seattle is another highlight, as travelers pass through a region once home to thriving Suquamish, Duwamish, Nisqually, Snoqualmie and Muckleshoot Native American settlements before skirting the northern fringes of Olympic National Park, one of the largest temperate rainforests in the country. The lapping waters of the Pacific Ocean greet you at La Push, Washington. While the broader health benefits of spending time outdoors are well-documented, trails along the “Great American,” as it’s known, are already playing a key role in helping revitalize economies in dozens of post-industrial towns across the Heartland: Steubenville and Dayton in Ohio; Muncie, Indiana and Joliet, Illinois, all have burgeoning brewery scenes situated close to the trail. The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy estimates the trail could generate as much as $138 billion for communities that build campsites, eateries and water and other adventure companies along the route. Embarking on such a major undertaking, however, hasn’t been easy. Large sections of the trail, particularly across Wyoming, where only 2% is currently completed, are yet to be built or mapped out. The Rails-toTrails Conservancy has taken on the mammoth task of working with trail planners, local and state agencies, elected officials and governors’ offices along the route, with 250 meetings held over 18 months in 2018 and 2019. About 300 trail plans were studied to determine the route. Still, while some western states have work to do, in places such as DC, Maryland, Illinois and Pennsylvania, more than 86% of the route is already open. If you averaged 60 miles per day on a bicycle, it would take you about 62 days to travel 3,700 miles by bicycle from Washington, DC to Washington State.
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