A treasured hike

One of my favorite hikes is Maryland Heights, which starts at the base of the C&O Canal, right at Harper's Ferry, WV. I love this hike for many reasons, but a lot of it is sentimental. Before I met Greg, I had been hiking several times, but it wasn't something that I did regularly. Right around the time when we started dating about three years ago, he took me to Harper's Ferry to go hiking one day. The Maryland Heights trail starts off pretty steep, and you continue to climb higher and higher for quite a while before eventually climbing down to the "reward," which is a mass of rocks that overlook Harper's Ferry and the Potomac River.

It's about 4 miles roundtrip- but we like to do the extension to Stone Fort, which adds on another 2 miles (and a massive uphill climb). Anyway, the first time Greg took me here, I was hooked. The hike is a pretty decent workout, but the stunning view at the overlook makes it all worth it.

I've been wanting to take the pups here since the day we brought them home. The only issue with hiking this trail is actually getting there. Parking is hard to come by, and we've often driven there and not been able to find a spot, forcing us to turn around and go find another place to hike. But, more often that not, we don't even have to worry about parking because we ride our bikes there instead. We'll drive to the Brunswick and bike along the C&O to Harper's Ferry (only about 5 miles or so), lock up our bikes at the trail base, hike, then bike back to Brunswick. We couldn't really do this with the pups, so we had to cross our fingers that we would find a spot. And we did (barely)!

We ended up parking on the WV side, which had us crossing over the bridge to get to the trail. Greg and I were wondering how L&J would handle the stairs that lead down the bridge, as they are a little strange. They are made up of metal bars, but are really thin and you can see right through below them (which is a pretty high distance). We've seen so many people and dogs walk down them very cautiously- and seem people who really don't like to walk down them at all. The stairs would definitely be a challenge for anyone who is afraid of heights! But, they made it down with no problem.

We had a great hike along the trail, and definitely liked the fact that it starts with such a big climb up- it's always good to get the boys a little tired out right off the bat. Even when they are "tired" they still have no problem keeping up with us. When we got to the overlook, I tried to get a decent family portrait using my self-timer- but you can see that was a challenge in itself. The hike back down was a little more tough, since it's basically all downhill.

This gave the pups a chance to get their energy back full-force, and they wanted to run the whole way (which we did not allow). By the time we made it back over the bridge and to the car, the pups were happily exhausted and slept the whole way home. As much as I love this trail, it's probably one that we won't be bringing the dogs to too often, simply for the fact of how difficult it is to find parking. We have so many great trails practically right in our backyard, so for now, we'll probably stick a little closer to home.