Cybersecurity Newsbites: Be Careful Out There

Hiking Catoctin But No Sign of Sarkozy

Carl has decreed that biking season is over, it is now officially hiking season. To kick off the season, we headed north to Cunningham Falls State Park and did the 6 mile Wolf Rock/Chimney Rock loop, which has lots of climbing. We didn't have all that much choice - the western half of the trail system was shut down because apparently President Bush and French President Sarkozy were meeting at Camp David. We never did catch a glimpse of Sarkozy's hot new wife, though.

When we got up there a car had a "MeetUp" sign taped to its open trunk - looks like the local Internet MeetUp hiking group had chosen the same location. It had been very windy the night before, knocking all of the red leaves off the trees so the only colors breaking up the green were yellow.

We did the hike in a counterclockwise direction, the opposite of the usual route. This puts most of the climbing in the first half of the hike and on the way up we passed this unusual structure. Looks like someone was building a jail out of some saplings and a small natural trail. Perhaps some pre-production planning for the next Blair With Project? 

We ran into the Meetup Group on Wolf Rock but kept going. Six miles later we were back at the visitor center and then made a quick stop at Pryor Orchards for some fine Braeburn apples.

Closing Out the Hiking Season

Carl has decreed it is finally the official end of the hiking season, as determined by two things: (1) The temperature is high enough to meet Carl's threshold for cycling; and (2) we have hiked just about every trail within 90 miles of the Baltimore/Washington area at least once and many of them twice. Unfortunately, the weather gods didn't hear about this, so this past Sunday was cold and rainy and we hiked Sugarloaf Mountain again this weekend, doing the Peak Views trail in a total fogout - the views were nothing but grey.

So, to close the hiking season out, a few pictures:

Entrance to an old chromium mine at Soldier's Delight.

 

 

Scenic outhouse at Cunningham Falls State Park.

 

 

Carl going uphill at Cunningham Falls.

Lofty Loudon Heights Hike Begats Brisk Bluster

Continuing on our quest to only do one car hikes, Carl and I revisited a favorite: a loop that starts at Harper's Ferry National Park in West Virginia. We started at the parking lot at the entrance off of Rt 340 and dutifully paid the $6 self service parking fee. The forecast was for a severe wind warning, with gusts of up to 79 mph trumpeted. But we are men, real men - neither wind, nor rain nor looming locusts would deter us, unless Starbucks was closed.

This hike starts out on the Appalachian trail, heading south out of Harper's Ferry on the Appalachian trail, which first crosses the Shenandoah River on the Rt. 340 bridge and then climbs directly up Loudon Heights. We were sheltered on the climb but once we crested the ridge the red flag wind conditions kicked in for a bit:

That's me, doing the penguin dance and proving that it did turn out to be a windy day!

There is then a very pleasant section along the Loudon Heights ridge with periodic viewpoints of the Potomac River and Harper's Ferry below. This is followed by a steep set of switchbacks to get back down to river level, with barbed wire encrusted signs encouraging you to stay on the switchbacks. I have no idea what the barbed wire is for - maybe bears have been eating the signs? If you hike this area frequently, you know the real reason to stay on the trail is to avoid the rampant poison ivy.

The most annoying part of this hike has been that once you reach river level you have a 1 mile walk on the shoulder of 340 but there is now a blue-blazed trail that cuts that in half by taking a scrubby detour through the wooded section next to the grubby parking lot where the kettle korn vendors hang out in warmer days. From there it is an easier hike over yet another Rt. 340 bridge over to the Sandy Hook side and then a scramble downhill to the C&O Canal. The winds really began to howl at this point, as they seemed to funnel down the river valley and really get ferocious. A freight train came through just before we reached the railroad bridge for yet another bridge walk. A quick stroll through Harper's Ferry and we were back at my truck.

A very nice 7 mile loop, Googleatronic map below and some more trip details here where average winds of 21 mph were reported.

Probing Patapsco's Paths, Preserving Petroleum

It is interesting how $3/gallon gas makes you think. Back in the 70s, when the Arab oil embargo gave us the first taste of $1/gallon gas (the equivalent of $3 today), the US lowered the highway speed limit, passed strong fuel economy standards and started building loads of bicycle paths to promote alternatives to driving. This time as the price of gas has doubled the US government seems to pretty much be just fiddling, so we have to take things into our own hands. Since hiking the Appalachian Trail usually involves close to 200 miles of roundtrip driving (with two cars if we want to avoid out and back hikes), Carl and I have been focusing on longer loop hikes in the Patapsco River watershed that cut down on the driving and that carbon footprint.

The first area we tried was starting from the town of Oella, between the Avalon and Hollofield areas of Patapsco State Park. Oella is a cool old mill town that has all you really need in life: a non-Starbucks coffee shop, the Trolley Line paved rail trail (only two miles long), lots of old stone houses, views of the Patapsco River, and a lot of paths through the woods and along the river. Plus it is a short walk to historic (tm) Ellicott City  with all kinds of other stuff to do and see.

We parked on the western side of the river and hiked along the river heading upstream for short bit until the terrain forced us up to the railroad tracks. In about 2.5 miles you reach the trails coming down from the Hollofield area and you reach Union Dam and the tunnel that goes through the ridge that Rt. 40 goes over. The Union Dam was built to supply water to the mills at Oella, and we would take advantage of this on the way back. I've walked through the tunnel years ago, but it is actually an active rail line and being older and more responsible we hiked around the tunnel along the river. There was still lots of snow on the ground and a good deal of ice in the shade.

At about the 4 mile mark, after having to get off the tracks to let a freight train go by, we reached Daniels and the old metal bridge that took us over the river and onto a path that headed back downstream now on the opposite side of the river. This path is not maintained but is fairly easy to follow - there were a lot of blowdowns and thistles to navigate through or around. As we hiked on that side of the river, two more looong freight trains went by on the tracks - a busy day for the old main line. This section is not tremendously scenic, but once we got back to Rt. 40 and the Union Dam it began to get interesting. Back in the day, the dam diverted water down a 2 mile long race (essentially a canal) to power the mills at Oella. To make this work they had to build a berm or wall to hold the water and the top of that berm is still mostly intact and is used as a hiking and mountain biking path. To your right is the river, to you left are the wooded hills - really scenic.

As you near Oella, you pass a number of footbridges that connect to trails that lead uphill. The Millrace trail ends in the yard of a beautiful house and you take a foot bridge to a short path around the house. Another quarter of a mile and you reach the old mill, which is now slowly being turned into condominiums. From there it is about a 1/2 mile walk on the road back to Old Frederick Road and that coffee shop/bakery. Many old stone houses, intermingled with newer architectural styles - an interesting area to walk through even if you never get on the trail. You can actually put together a four mile road loop by going up the Trolley Line rail trail and then circling back on the roads through Oella.

Ended up as about a 9 mile round trip, Googleatized map below:

This past week we tried to put together some loop trails downstream from Oella at Ilchester.  First we tried starting at a unmaintained trail that ends at River Road. It basically follows the clearing made for a fiber optic line, but it runs smack into private property at a cattle farm. Without trespassing through the cow pies there was no way to get from there into the Patapsco park trail system. So, we circled back and went downstream a bit to Ilchester, where is now a footbridge that crosses the Patapsco, enabling a loop hike from Ilchester over the footbridge, up the paved trail to the swinging bridge, then back on the southern side of the river where River Road was wiped out by Hurricane Agnes back in 1972. About a 2.5 mile loop, not tremendously exciting but a nice tour de bridges. The ruins of the old St. Mary's school used to be at the top of the hill where you come out, but it is gone now. Some photos:

Just Another Patapsco Hike

An odd juxtaposition: I spent the week in Las Vegas at a company offsite (as usual accomplishing the squadoosh typical of off-sites) and returned to snow and ice in Maryland. I hate Las Vegas - it is probably the worst possible city (well, Orlando is close) for a business trip. Back in the day (pre-laptops, pre-Blackberries) there used to be downtime on business trips, but now they are pretty much "fly at the last minute, work, fly back as soon as possible" so the major features I look for in hotels are fast Internet connectivity and a good (and free) health club - and hotels in Vegas have neither. One neat thing - on the way back, my flight was delayed and the Las Vegas airport has a fitness club - for $10 I killed an hour working out instead of killing an hour enriching Starbucks' bottom line.

So, last weekend Carl and I decided to hike the northern side of the Avalon area of Patapsco State Park, revisiting the scene of the crime. We'd had about 5 inches of snow earlier in the week and there was still a few inches covering any shaded area. That seemed to attract the mountain bikers, as there were scads of them about. The river level is up quite a bit, maybe we are slowly pulling out of drought territory.

From the Park 'n Ride we hiked the Soapstone Branch Trail down to the Patapsco River, then about 2 miles on the paved hiker/biker trail upstream to the Buzzards Rock trail back up the ridge. Three or four miles on the Santee Branch trail brought us back to the Soapstone Branch Trail, with some nice ups and downs but no killer climbs. Not much wildlife out - a bunch of deer resting up between making assaults on suburban landscaping and that was about it. A total of about 8.5 miles

Googleicious map of the hike below and more statistics here:

Paddling the Potomac, Perambulating Panther Branch

The second week of the new year looked like it would stay on the 7 day cycle of gorgeous weather during the week when I am away on travel, then cloudy/rainy weather on the weekend. However, the weather pundits were about as accurate as the election campaign pundits - both Saturday and Sunday were perfect for kayaking and hiking respectively.

On Saturday I joined CPAers Cyndi, Dave, and Marshall in launching from the Columbia Island Marina off the Potomac River just north of National Airport. Dave and Marshall were going to practice some cold water rolling, but Cyndi decided to stay dry and convinced me (who currently can only do the first part of the roll that puts you upside down with your head under water) to jon her in doing some fast paddling down the Potomac and up the Anacostia. The weather was so nice that several other paddlers were launching, as well - almost all of them in beautiful hand-built wood kayaks. We all donned our drysuits, anticipating the fine steam box effect that we were going to soon be feeling.

Cyndi was in her Nemo, while I was still pushing my P&H Capella, as it looks like my Kayakpro Marlin won't be delivered until late February or early March. That meant Cyndi had to dial down her speed (in races like the 10 mile Broadkill I've noticed she typically beats me by a little more than 1 minute per mile) but we did manage to average about 5 mph over the 11 mile paddle. When I do get the new boat (the Marlin is basically the boy's version of the Nemo) I will lose any excuses for being slower - but I'm sure I will think up new ones.

We paddled across the empty Potomac into a slight breeze out of the south, under the bridges and around Hain's Point.  I thought they had already moved it but the Awakening statue is still there and it looked like the nice weather had brought out a lot of bicyclists, maybe replicating the Potomac Pedalers World's Most Boring Century - 30 laps around Hain's Point. We headed up the Anacostia - I've paddled down from Bladensburg but never seen that side of DC from the water. We came across some six person outrigger canoes, one of which had Susanita in the number 5 position. We stopped to chat for a while and then headed up past a battle ship docked at the Navy Yard,  and past the site where the new Nationals stadium is emerging.  It doesn't look that far from completion, but there were a bajillion cement mixer trucks parked outside it. I had thought they were going to emulate the San Francisco Giants new stadium and have an open outfield where you could sit in your kayak in the river and try to catch a home run ball, but no dice.

We continued up to the bridge where the coal cars had fallen into the river a few weeks ago. The water gets more trash-ridden the further you go up the Anacostia, definitely doesn't look as attractive for rolling as the Potomac does. This area brought back memories of when I worked for the Secret Service and we had a number of facilities along the river - back then I would have never assumed I would ever want to boat in the Anacostia. We turned around at the bridge and paddled back to the Marina into a freshening wind. I hadn't done any longer than a 6 mile paddle in over a month, and I was starting to flag - so I pretended to want to do a scientific investigation of drafting in a kayak and grabbed a ride. However, without a rudder it is tough (for me at least) to stay positioned right - all the steering strokes and edging canceled out the advantage.

We got back to the Marina just a few minutes after Dave and Marshall, marveling at some of the gigantic yachts still in the water. I drained about a gallon of sweat out of the feet of my dry suit and demurely changed into dry clothes behind the door of my pickup truck. I was later told that the Marina parking lot was a known meetup place for gay people, but for some reason watching me stand around in my soggy underwear emptying sweat from my drysuit didn't act as an aphrodisiac for any of the many guys sitting in their cars pretending to read the Washington Post...

A little under 11.5 miles in about 2 hours and 20 minutes for about a 5mph average - Googleified map below, some other analysis here.

The next day Carl and I went up to Hereford and hiked a loop around the Panther Branch Trail along the Gunpowder Falls river. This is about a 5 mile loop that starts on the north side of the river at York road, passing by loads of evidence of serious beaver activity and a nice waterfall. The river snakes through very picturesque gorge with lots of pine trees, holly and mountain laurel on the southern slopes. After crossing over the river on a bridge that is under construction, we worked our way east and then headed south on the Panther Branch trail. This takes you gradually up hill, past many ruins of old mills and sluices, until you cross a field and enter a pine forest along the ridge.

As we headed down from the ridge, a woman with what appeared to be an overly large, overly protective beekeeper hat covering her entire head was working her way up. I asked her if she was trying to get her instrument rating (they cover your head) but it turned out she was doing some kind of set-up for a night time trial of K9 rescue dogs. I still don't get it but she went on her merry way and we went on ours. This hike doesn't reach any great altitude, but has enough up and down to keep it interesting, and many great views of the river.  Interactive map below.

A Four Sport Weekend: Hike, Bike, Run, Fly

Winter seems to have ended (thanks, Global Warming!) so I figured some biking or a kayaking in Southern Maryland would be a good idea this weekend. Chris was going to be around and he suggested doing some aerial surveillance of the Calvert/St. Mary's county area. The plan evolved to fly out of St. Mary's Airport in Leonardtown, since our combined weight was marginal for taking off out of the Chesapeake Ranch airstrip where he keeps his plane. So, I decided to so some biking out of St. Mary's and check out the college while I was down there. The biking was not very spectacular - certainly not worth driving 100 miles for - but the weather was great for flying. That area is squeezed between the flight restriction zones for the DC area and for the Patuxent and Dahlgren bases but we were able to have some great views of St. Clement's Island and the Calvert Cliffs area. I did kiss the ground when we landed safely, as Chris came in a bit high and had to "slip" the plane to bleed off some altitude - a maneuver that on Microsoft Flight simulator generally ends in me hearing a bang and seeing a cracked windshield on my PC screen.

Maryland is still on the seven day "rain every Saturday night/Sunday morning" cycle but being manly men Carl and I decided to hike anyway the next day. We decided to do the Cat Rock loop on the Western side of the Catoctin range. This is the hike where last March I lost my ice-gripper boot add-on, but no luck - we didn't find it. The clouds burned off and it turned into a beautiful day by the time we reached the summit at Cat Rock, after passing through many fragrant areas where the icing of weeks past had brought down many pine tree limbs.

   

At the top, Carl contemplated the meaning of life and where he might have left his water bottle - oh, yeah, it is right behind him. Cat Rock is at an elevation of about 1700 feet and has a nice view into the valley where Thurmount is nestled. The hike back from there is largely downhill with lots of switchbacks - a good way to break in my knees for the new year. To punish them further, I did a 3 mile run with Carole at the end of the day in our neighborhood, over hill and dale. Going down stairs tomorrow will not be fun Googleicious map of the hike below with and elevation profile here.

Leaping Into Leap Year

Finally, 2008 is actually here. Allegedly, soon there will be an election and an end to the inane coverage of the current crop of 37 or so candidates. If you live in Australia or New Zealand you'll have a pretty nice eclipse to view in about a month. We will all work an extra .3% this year for free, as 2008 will have a February 29th - with global warming and all, that day (a Friday) may be a great day to take off and go paddling. In any event, 2008 probably can't be any worse than 2007 was - and it may be a whole lot better. To get 2008 off in the right direction, I managed to work in hiking, biking and kayaking across the end of the old and the start of the new year.

Carl and I returned to Maryland Heights to complete the Fort trail loop hike that was derailed by ice and fog last time. For some reason, Carl suggested (and I agreed) that we would start at the base of Weaverton Cliffs where the Appalachian Trail meets the C&O Canal Towpath, which meant we would have about 6 miles of towpath hiking and 5 miles of climbing up and down Maryland Heights - basically 3 miles flat, 2.5 miles up, 2.5 miles down, 3 miles flat. The weather here is on one of those seven day cycle where every Sunday is gray and rainy, so from the stone fort at the top of the mountain (at about 1400 feet elevation) the view was muted but still pretty impressive, as was the evidence of all the damage from the icing. The information signs talked about how they pulled 10,000 pound cannons up to this fort but I will bet they never once actually hit anything from up there. It rained and sleeted for the last two miles of the hike on the Towpath but doing an 11 miler was a good way to close out 2007.

I had missed out on a CPA paddle around Eastern Neck Island, so on New Year's Eve day I snuck in a paddle on the Potomac from Jack's Boathouse in Georgetown. Frank the proprietor was there and let me launch at my peril, since the big floating dock had been pulled up and only a small dock with a powerboat using up most of the space was left. I managed to get into the kayak (looking like the Michelin Man in my dry suit) without going swimming and paddled a little over 2.5 miles upstream almost to the Chain Bridge. The water was pretty high and the current was noticeable - I thought I was way out of shape until I turned back and then my speed jumped from 5mph to closer to 7 mph. A lot of swirls and eddies in the water, as well, making paddling a bit more work than at lower water levels. Back at Jacks, I helped Frank move a boat as some payback for being able to launch and headed home.

Carole and I started the New Year with our odd "go to Starbucks and drive around looking at houses" tradition, after puzzling over the Washington Post's annual In and Out list for a while. The older I get, the fewer of the pop references I understand - that's probably a good thing. The weather was decent, so I decided to head over to the Baltimore Annapolis Rail Trail and bike from the Earleigh Heights restored train station to Annapolis. When I left it was in the forties and sunny, but by the time I started it was cloudy and had dropped into the thirties. I biked into Annapolis, where it appears they are doing major construction on the city dock area - it was a mess.

On the way back, rather than just take the B&A trail back for the standard linear 22 mile out-n-back, after crossing the Severn River I detoured onto old Baltimore Annapolis Blvd and then out to Greenbury Point where the old Navy antennas used to be. From there I headed  onto St. Margaret's Road, eventually reaching Rt. 50 at Cape St. Clair Road. This is a nice stretch of road, with a few short ups and downs and lots of great scenery - interesting houses and occasional water views. I took College Parkway against the freshening wind back to Jones Station Road and back to the B&A trail - the detour added almost 7 miles for about a 29 mile total. If you look at the track of the ride below, it sorta looks like a crude drawing of Snoopy, no??

Happy Holiday Hiatus for the Restofus

  For outdoor pursuits, 2007 was a pretty good year:

• Got up to four kayaks and paddled most of the places I wanted to paddle: Wye Island, Eastern Neck, Jug Bay, Parker's Creek and a whole bunch of races.
• Biked a bit less but managed to do the Salisbury Century for the first time in about 10 years
• Hiked every segment of the Maryland Appalachian Trail and pretty much every other hikable spot within 100 miles of this area

Lots more to do in 2008 - I never did paddle Janes Island and it looks like the Blackburn Challenge race will be on the agenda - with a brand new boat to paddle. I want to bike the Allegheny Passage bike trail and increase the number of long hikes as well. Oh, and probably do some more 5k races with my wife. Now, if I can only figure out a way to get that annoying job out of the way that forces so much indoor time...

So, happy trails/wakes/slipstreams to all and to all a good night.

HF Cubed: Hiking Frigid Harpers Ferry's Hoary Forts

Very odd weather in the mid-Atlantic this past week. All week long the weather psychics "forecasters" were predicting a giant ice/sleet/snow storm for the Maryland area starting Saturday am and lasting well into the next century. Of course, it turned out to be your basic standard rain that started late Saturday night and was pretty much over by Sunday am - at least by my definition of over. Carl's definition of over means blue skies and no clouds but I managed to convince him that real men hike in all conditions. Given that there had been some icing to the north, we decided to head west and do the Maryland Heights trails on the ridge that overlooks Harpers Ferry, WVA. Harper's Ferry is kind of a cool place to visit no matter what, and there are many hiking options since the Appalachian Trail goes right through it.

On the drive out I-70 and MD 15 we drove over a small ridge and there was some icing on the trees and we hit some pouring rain - Carl's mood ring turned darker and darker. However, by the time we reached Harper's Ferry the rain had stopped and there didn't appear to be any icing (turns out the icing was hidden by the low cloud level, as you can see in the photo to the left). We parked at the MARC train station on the edge of the old restored town where, as part of this administration's approach to deficit reduction, a young National Park Service guy is paid $10 per hour to collect a $6 parking fee from the three or four cars that show up on Sunday. Actually, he doesn't even collect it - he just tells you to put it in an envelope and put the envelope in the honor system slot...

Years back, there was only an informal trail system that would take you up to the Maryland Height's rocks that overlook where the Shenandoah River feeds into the Potomac River, but several years ago the Park Service put in some nice marked trails along old woods roads where cannons were dragged up to the top to protect Harpers Ferry. You basically hike about 1,000 feet straight up over about 2.5 miles - it is a nice workout. About 1/2 way up, while snaking up a very scenic valley, we hit the ice level - first just at the top of the trees and then gradually down to the bottom of the trunks. Lots of downed branches, but the first 2 miles or so the path is a wide road and they were easy to get around.

However, the higher we got the icier and narrower it got - pretty soon we were forcing ourselves through trees completely frozen with a 1/4 inch covering of ice. By the time we reached the first signs of old forts at the top, the wind was picking up, the visibility was dropping and it was nearly impossible to figure out where the trail was. We reached a junction with a trail we never had heard of (the Elk Ridge trail) so we followed the sign that said "Back to Harpers Ferry" which quickly lead us in a circle back to the same trail we had taken up to the top. Given that it seemed to be getting colder and windier, and we weren't getting any younger, we took that as a sign to just head back rather than find the loop over to the overlook trail.

Gravity was our friend on the return hike and we saw much more scenic icy stuff. About halfway down we hit the melt zone - lots of dripping on our heads and much crackling sounds. We only saw one other hiker out and saw one heron down on the river - weather-wise it was a good day to couch-potate. Even the coffee shop in Harpers Ferry was lethargic - no soup or chili available. We never did get to see the stone fort up on the ridge - that is probably better saved for a day when there is some visibility with which to enjoy the view anyway.

Below is the Googlicious map of the hike - hit the zoom out (-) button to check out the commercial jet liner that Google caught in mid-flight!