The Great Allegheny Passage Tail
is a 149-mile walking path that begins in Cumberland, Maryland and winds its
way up to Pittsburgh, ending at Point State Park where the confluence of the
Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers form the Ohio River in downtown Pittsburgh.
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| Railroad tower near MM144 |
On the weekend in which January
turned to February I walked on a small portion of the trail from an abandoned railroad
observation tower in Baldwin Borough (near mile marker 144) to the Birmingham
Bridge just prior to mile marker 146. I used the old observation tower as a
reference marker for the southern terminus of this trip. The tower was marked
with graffiti and is derelict. A large electrical outlet box on the side had
its door standing ajar and it seems that birds had worked around the ends of
big cables to make nests. Nearby a pair of downy woodpeckers searched the
snow-laden trees for food. After two weeks of extremely cold weather, the
Monongahela River was filled with ice and sections of the path were covered
with well packed snow. As I walked on some of the more secluded parts of this
section, I watched towboats with barges navigate and push through the ice that
clogged with the river.
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| Pittsburgh skyline from the Hot Metal Bridge |
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| Birmingham Bridge |
Walking north the path crosses
29th Street on Pittsburgh’s Southside, adjacent to the Hot Metal Bridge. The trail
in the Pittsburgh area is interesting because it takes you through many of the remnants
of the city as a steel town, a sort of modern archaeological excursion. There
are several places and markers denoting where steel plants once stood. A pile
of railroad ties slowly disintegrating seems to point out that the decline of
the industry was rapid and somewhat unexpected.
As I walked underneath the
Birmingham Bridge on Groundhog Day, people were gathering for an event known as
the “Drowned Hogs.” Given Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of this
harsh winter, the event probably accurately captured many people’s mood.
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