Summer is unfortunately drawing to a close, and after several consecutive weekends of thunderstorms and blazing humidity, this past weekend offered temperatures in the low 70s, so local hiking staple, the Maryland Heights Trail in Harper’s Ferry was an obvious choice for a hiking fast fix. Unsurprisingly, it was an easy choice for everyone else in the region itching for some outdoors time after some Summer cabin-fever, making the summit, which I’ve visited when deserted on multiple occasions, the busiest I’ve ever seen it. It’s a beautiful, albeit locally stereotypical, overlook a bit over 300 feet above the Potomac River and Civil War era town beneath. Its steep climb means you reach the summit in ~40min at a moderate pace, making the 3.3mi round trip (skipping the 2.2mi Stone Fort Trail Loop) taxing for the distance covered, but quickly worth the extra uphill effort. This trip was the first time I’ve seen a train use the Southern CSX rail line, however I was on the summit, not the rail bridge like I’d have preferred (just to finally experience how sketchy standing on a rail bridge with a train rumbling alongside feels). Before heading over to the trailhead, I head up High Street to look for evidence of the 2015 fire, which engulfed shops I’ve visited, and impacted a restaurant I ate at just months before the mysterious fire broke out. Evidence of rebuilding is there if you look closely enough, but to the ordinary unaware passerby, you wouldn’t be able to tell a difference - they did good work restoring the historic area!
Bonus: Photos of me at the summit, and see 4K footage of trains and the over-friendly moth. The video footage was shot handheld at 720mm, so yeah, difficult to hold perfectly still at that focal length.
