I was very excited to be doing Trout Run Valley again (my 6th time doing the loop) but due to trail closures (It was been closed off since October???!!!) I had to reschedule for another LM trip. One of my favorite aspects of Trout Run Valley is its proximity to DC. At under 2 hours coupled with the breathtaking views at Tibbet Knob and Big Schloss, it’s really hard to top it. So when I was brainstorming of possible trip alternatives that rested under a LM trip while also being relatively close to DC, Caledonia State Park became paramount. Thus we set our eyes upon the white blazes and ventured North to Pennsylvania.
Thus on Saturday morning, 7 DCUL backpackers staggered out of bed after a night of little sleep and trudged on up to Grosvenors Metro Station. Wesal, Adam, Ashley, Jake, Daniel, and myself all met around 8:00 to arrange the carpools for the Caledonia loop. Our friend Juan would meet us at the trailhead as he wanted to do some bonus miles the day before and camp out near the start of our trip. Both Juan and Daniel were applicants and were eager to earn their member badges after completing this trip. Myself, Jake, and Daniel piled into Adam’s car while Wesal caught a ride with Ashley and together we made our way to the inaugural Sheetz standard on DCUL trips.
Sheetz Review: 428 N Church St, Thurmont, MD 21788
Bathroom (Male): Pretty clean. Five urinals. Two toilet stalls. found the toilet stall to be spacious. Toilet paper seemed to be better than other Sheetz I’ve been to.
Food: Got my food really quickly. Jake got his food late and they made up for it by giving him a free coffee or soft drink on the house!They added onion petals to the App Sampler menu (or least I haven’t seen them before). I got the Wisconsin Cheese Bitez, Boneless Bitez, and the Onion Petals. Though, I may have to try the quesadilla next time. Jake ordered it and started eating in the car. The smell was so glorious that I had to beg for a bite. Thank you Jake!
Overall, this Sheetz get 9.5/10 rating. It’s proximity to the freeway is an added bonus. We barely had to deviate from our route to get here. Sheetz all day.
Back to the Trip!
We got to the trailhead at exactly 10:10 and were greeted by Juan anxiously waiting for us. We grabbed our backpacks, introduced ourselves to Juan, and then immediately began our trip. The route was as follows: Start North on the Appalachian trail going through Caledonia State park–>turn right onto the Greenwood Road Trail–>make another right onto the Long Pine Connector Trail–> continue on trail, skirting right next to the Long Pine Reservoir–>turn right onto the Abigail Trail–> turn left onto the EUB Camp Haul Road–> Turn left onto the Dam Breast Access Road–>make a right onto an unnamed trail–>another left onto Birch Run Road–>right onto Rocky Knob Trail–> Left onto the Appalachian Trail heading South–> Back to cars!
Our day started with a nice, steep climb out of Caledonia State Park. This would really be our only “serious” climb for the day. We soon departed the Appalachian Trail and made our way to the Long Pine Reservoir. At the point the trail gets very smooth and really lacks any semblance to the Appalachian Trail. Sometimes it’s just nice to be outside and walk on trails without gaining too much elevation. The only downside with trails like these is that when it becomes too easy, I tend to under prepare. What do I mean? It means that I may or may not have known which way we were to go at intersections. Luckily we all had maps and stopped at these intersections to confirm which way we go. A few times Adam and others corrected my way finding. Fortunately this LM trip is very forgiving. Thanks team!
In short time we made it to the base of the dam. Here we realized we had to cross a small stream. Our feet were going to get wet so most of us opted in removing our shoes and walking barefoot (Juan walked right through with his shoes on because he said after camping in wet conditions last night, he had embraced the wet). We then walked up the dam which proved to be really steep. It almost felt like it wasn’t a trail but there were day hikers there. It inadvertently was a beautiful location to make for lunch.
After our lunch we continued down the trail where it remained flat. The mountain laurels hadn’t bloomed yet but I imagine in a few weeks the trail would have been a tunnel of mountain laurels flanking on all sides. We meandered down the winding Abigail Trail and crossed a few roads until we got to our last water spot. Here we made the decision to stay left on the Rocky Knob trail to avoid the climb if we decided to do the Rocky Knob trail counter clockwise. Additionally we thought that if we stayed left and walked on the flatter section of trail we would be able to fill up our water later (we wanted to minimize the amount of time we had carry water to our dry campsite). After walking sometime on the trail, we soon realized that knob run dried out. The plan backfired so we had to pull out the map to analyze possible water locations. My first thought was to continue North on the Appalachian Trail and head towards Birch Run Shelter. Here there was an established water source but it would an extra two miles. However the idea to continue to our campsite and then walk >0.5 mile to a PATC cabin was proposed. I was initially hesitant to accept this idea because I couldn’t confirm if there was in fact a water source at this cabin. It wasn’t until I opened FarOut on my phone and checked the crowdsourced comment on the cabin site that read “gud flow.” That was enough for me, and we pushed to camp. Teamwork!
We got to our dry campsite at around 3:00 and immediately started pitching our tents. The forecast called for the chance of rain starting at 4:00 so we needed to set up shelters and a fire ASAP. Jake and Adam were put on fire duty while the rest of us headed to the PATC cabin to retrieve water. The Milesburn Cabin is one of the oldest PATC cabins with a flowing stream running right in front of it. Don’t think about using its privy because there is a lock on it. We tanked up on water and headed back to camp. While walking back the rain began to gently come down. When we arrived back to camp, Adam and Jake were tending to the fire. We held our umbrellas over Jake while he did everything he could to build and grow it.
After some time Jake was able to construct it with the little dry wood available. However the turning point was when Juan and Adam took out their flextail air pumps and directed it towards the base of the fire. This exponentially grew the fire that allowed us to throw bigger chunks of wood over it. This was the first time I had seen the flextail pump be used for fire making. It proved to be very effective, especially during our rainy circumstances. The fire was yet another exercise in our teamwork! Some decided to eat their dinners around 6:00 but others like myself, Wesal, and Ashley held on another hour—6:00 was too early for us.
The rain slowed down at around 7:30 so I pulled out my cold soaked cous cous and began eating my dinner. We all huddled around the fire for another hour or so until the temptation of our warm sleeping bags became too overwhelming.
Rain was on/off through the night. It came down hard around 11:00pm-2:00am.
We started getting out of our tents around 7:00am to prepare for the final miles. I took a photo of everyone’s tents. The cool thing about DCUL are the unique tents that everyone has.
We pushed all the way to the Quarry Gap Shelter, arguably one of the prettiest shelters along the whole AT. Here we got cell signal and researched places to eat after. We found a place called Kountry Kitchen and then made haste to the cars. More teamwork! Jake, Wesal, and I decided that we needed to save Gondor, so we pulled up the “Lighting the Beacons” song from the Lord of the Rings Movie and ran down the trail. Gondor fell. Teamwork, but we failed 😦
We soon got back to the cars and said goodbye to Juan, congratulating him on becoming a member now with the club. The rest of us headed towards Thurmont to satisfy our hunger at the Kountry Kitchen. I hope this becomes a new place for post trips in DCUL. We don’t have to veer of the route back to Grosvenor and they provide a lot of food for not a lot. The staff are so homely also. Adam asked for a Whoopie Pie and the waitress then jokingly said “if you stand up I can give you one right now.” I couldn’t control myself and started laughing uncontrollably. What a great way to finish a backpacking trip. It also has ample vegetarian options!
Congratulations to Daniel and Juan for becoming members after this trip. And thank you to all the returning members who joined me on this trip. I hope to see everyone again on another! Maybe Trout Run Valley will open again!
DC UL Backpacking 
DCUL teamwork in action! This was a great trip report Willy! It’s too bad I missed out on this one.
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