Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) Yo-Yo
Name: Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) Yo-Yo
Start/Finish: Point State Park Fountain (601 Commonwealth Pl, Pittsburgh, PA 15222) to GAP/C&O Junction (13 Canal St, Cumberland, MD 21502) and back
Length: 298 miles
GPX: File
Description: By industry standards, the GAP is what rail-trail dreams are made of: a major urban center as its western focal point; a historic town at its eastern base that caters to trail users; sprawling landscapes; expansive bridges and tunnels; and relics encapsulating the region’s history, from the days of George Washington, to its past heyday as an American industrial powerhouse.
About 15 communities line the route—many of them former coal, iron and steel enclaves that have embraced a new calling in the post-Industrial Age as trail towns.
“You are tracing George Washington’s footsteps from the 1700s, and old industry, from coal mining to coke manufacturing—from American independence to the Industrial Revolution. And these towns are great at telling their own stories.
At its western terminus is Point State Park (mile 150) in Pittsburgh, where the trail makes a congruent link with the 24-mile Three Rivers Heritage Trail. The park marks the former site of two prominent mainstays of the Seven Years War—Fort Pitt and Fort Duquesne—and it was during the war that Lt. Col. George Washington cleared the difficult route later known as Braddock’s Road, between Fort Cumberland and the Ohio River, part of which the GAP now follows.
Thirty bridges and trestles, and four tunnels, line the GAP. These include icons like the 101-foot-high Salisbury Viaduct near Meyersdale; the Pinkerton High Bridge over the Casselman River; the 130-year-old Pinkerton Tunnel spanning 849 feet in Markleton; and the 3,249.6-foot Big Savage Tunnel, a product of an ambitious renovation.
And then there’s the view—encapsulated in the Laurel Highlands, a 3,000-square-mile region in Fayette, Somerset and Westmoreland counties famous for its watersheds and foliage-lined viewscapes. This includes the 20,633-acre Ohiopyle State Park, known for its camping, whitewater and proximity to renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob.
Unsupported:
Men: Daniel Eisenberg, 9/17/2024, 19:42:20
Women:
NonBinary:
Para:
Team:
Supported:
Men:
Women:
Team:
Para:
Name: Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) Yo-Yo
Start/Finish: Point State Park Fountain (601 Commonwealth Pl, Pittsburgh, PA 15222) to GAP/C&O Junction (13 Canal St, Cumberland, MD 21502) and back
Length: 298 miles
GPX: File
Description: By industry standards, the GAP is what rail-trail dreams are made of: a major urban center as its western focal point; a historic town at its eastern base that caters to trail users; sprawling landscapes; expansive bridges and tunnels; and relics encapsulating the region’s history, from the days of George Washington, to its past heyday as an American industrial powerhouse.
About 15 communities line the route—many of them former coal, iron and steel enclaves that have embraced a new calling in the post-Industrial Age as trail towns.
“You are tracing George Washington’s footsteps from the 1700s, and old industry, from coal mining to coke manufacturing—from American independence to the Industrial Revolution. And these towns are great at telling their own stories.
At its western terminus is Point State Park (mile 150) in Pittsburgh, where the trail makes a congruent link with the 24-mile Three Rivers Heritage Trail. The park marks the former site of two prominent mainstays of the Seven Years War—Fort Pitt and Fort Duquesne—and it was during the war that Lt. Col. George Washington cleared the difficult route later known as Braddock’s Road, between Fort Cumberland and the Ohio River, part of which the GAP now follows.
Thirty bridges and trestles, and four tunnels, line the GAP. These include icons like the 101-foot-high Salisbury Viaduct near Meyersdale; the Pinkerton High Bridge over the Casselman River; the 130-year-old Pinkerton Tunnel spanning 849 feet in Markleton; and the 3,249.6-foot Big Savage Tunnel, a product of an ambitious renovation.
And then there’s the view—encapsulated in the Laurel Highlands, a 3,000-square-mile region in Fayette, Somerset and Westmoreland counties famous for its watersheds and foliage-lined viewscapes. This includes the 20,633-acre Ohiopyle State Park, known for its camping, whitewater and proximity to renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob.
Unsupported:
Men: Daniel Eisenberg, 9/17/2024, 19:42:20
Women:
NonBinary:
Para:
Team:
Supported:
Men:
Women:
Team:
Para: