Like the day before, the air was brisk and we were ready to hit the trail. Unlike yesterday it was easy leaving as we coasted downhill adroitly avoiding a trio of turkey vultures feasting on road kill. Turning onto the trail, we were greeted by a brown rabbit, who appeared much more friendly than the snake that crossed our path the prior day.
But this would be the last time that we were afforded a downhill glide: from here to the Eastern Continental Divide it is all uphill.
(Now this may overstate things a bit because this is not the alps and as we after ascended Chestnut Ridge and Laurel Ridge later in the day we did so with little huffing and puffing though our legs could feel the increased resistance.) I was looking for signs of coke furnaces near the trail but unlike the industrial remains further north, they are well camouflaged into the background with only a few visible.
Further down river, the rapids pick up representing the only noise save an occasional train that runs on the rails across the river. But we prefer our gravel bed. Within 20 minutes of our departure we shed our second layer as our bodies have warmed with exercise. We don’t talk but rather focus on peddling and keeping our rhythm. The gravel crunches under the tires as an occasional bird chirps and chipmunks scamper through the leaves. As the sun breaks through the clouds, the river shimmers and increases in sound.
The forest to our right starts to fill in more and is lined with a large stand of locust and Trees of Heaven. These aren’t the only look-a-likes as poison hemlock (which resembles the much more benign Queen Anne’s lace) lines the trail.
With each mile comes a new marker, or sometimes two. There are the old P&LE markers that started in McKeesport and then there are the GAP markers. There are also bat boxes that help to control the mosquito population. We peddle on. 
Soon we come out of the forest to Connellsville, which has an arch framing a backdrop of rolling mountains and hills. We wonder is that what we need to climb or has the railroad found a better way for us to traverse it? We will soon find out. Rolling down a slight hill, there are murals sketched by local children illustrating the town’s heritage.
Though you wouldn’t know it today, Connellsville was the Silicon Valley of the late 1800s. Steel and coke were the new technologies of the day and a complex and reinforcing ecosystem was created in the area all linked by the railroad, whose bed we are riding upon now. Riding from Pittsburgh, the GAP in many ways is a high technology journey from the present to the past.
Leaving town, we see that a group of mulberry trees have dropped their fruit on the ground next to deer droppings. From afar it is difficult to tell the difference between the two.
We have started to climb on a more consistent basis as we are going over Chestnut Ridge, one of two ridges that we will go over today. The Yough is far below us and except for the cuts that have been made in the hillside to make way for the railroad tracks, little has been disturbed.
The plants are changing. The locust is gone replaced by maples, tulip trees, and cherries that line the road. To our right are vast arrays of native rosebay rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum) that can become as large as 30 feet round. We pass through a cut where rhododendron have planted themselves in the cracks of the stone and slate. They hang off the sides in gigantic round forms to our right. I wonder how they can hang so erect from such a seemingly precarious position. But we have little time to stop and wonder as we continue up the ridge.
We are getting deeper into more remote country, the river is become wilder and the path thinner with a darker canopy hanging overhead. While it is sunny and very warm, we are kept cool by the shade and the streams from the mountainside that flow down from the right. A blast of cool air hits us every time we pass over a tiny bridge traversing a stream. We take it into our lungs as it nourishes us and helps us go forward. So the temperatures go up and down depending upon if we hit a patch of occasional sun that heats the crushed gravel path, stay in the dense shade or go by a stream.
There are a few fly fisherman down in the river taking advantage of this lovely day. They like us have to travel economically as they, like us, can only get to this place by foot or by bicycle.
Lots of jewelweed grow near the trenches that catch any runoff so if we have the misfortune to get poison ivy, of which there is lots, there is a quick and available antidote. There are also a lot of black flies and mosquitoes, no doubt taking advantage of the many pools of fresh, clean water that sit all around us. On the bike moving, we are not bothered except they have become an all too frequent snack and coating on my sunglasses as do bugs on a fast moving car.
The cathedral of trees takes us further into the woods. The trees along the trail are close together, tall and skinny attempting to get some light but can’t because of the competition. It feels that we are truly alone and the first nine notes of “Dueling Banjos“,made famous by the movie “Deliverance” keep going through my head. But when Ted tells me that we have pretty good cell service, I feel a bit sheepish and realize that while it appears we are isolated we are not that far away from civilization.
To prove that point, we soon finish crossing the ridge finding ourselves in Ohiopyle State Park, which is filled with people swimming, biking, kayaking and canoeing. We spot a lot of kayakers attempting to make their way through the rocks from the vantage of the Ohiopyle High Bridge. The Low version of this bridge takes us into town, where we stop for lunch.
Ohiopyle has a very different vibe than I am used to in Pennsylvania. My memories reveal lots of run-down older towns where many of my relatives have lived. This trip is refreshing those memories with a new vitality as Ohiopyle feels more like a cool town in Colorado or the Pacific Northwest than what I am used to seeing in the Keystone State. It is a mix of old and new with large rhododendrons and flowering mountain laurel–the state flower–coving the sides and cell phone towers sprouting from ridge after ridge. Old railroad bridges repurposed for biking and hiking. And new technology recreational gear that makes the outdoor experience so much better and safer.
After our side trip to Fallingwater, we start on the final leg of today’s ride to Harnedsville, a bit south of Confluence. Our retreat into the shady trail from the sunny town is refreshing as we get into the final cycling rhythm of the day. It is starting to get cool and the sun throws long shadows in the few areas where it can get through. The river becomes effervescent with light as the angle of the sun sends sparkles that bounce off the river colliding with the nearby shore.
Ted is setting the pace around 11 miles an hour as we need to conserve our legs for the next day when we hope to go over the Eastern Continental Divide and bike 63 miles.
We pass through a cut where the rhododendron have colonized both sides of the trail surrounding us with their evergreen leaves reaching out to consume all the space we must cycle through. Very cool.
Soon we are close to the Hanna House B&B where we will spend the night when I notice a rabbit that looks identical to the one we saw this morning 44 miles back from where we started. I know it is not the same one but it is a nice way to end the day.
