Buck30 - Potomac Heritage Trail Journal - 2021

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Not surprisingly the peninsula was crazy busy with cars. I ended up altering my route as I didn't find the longer "quiet" roads to be quiet at all during the summer. The first half from Point Lookout to Helen was mostly on 2 land roads with an absolutely gigantic shoulder. Like 8' wide. Seemed bigger than the actual driving lane so that was great. The roads were somewhat busy but with only 2 lanes and a giant shoulder the walking was actually fine. Then I picked up the Three Notch bike trail for 7 miles which was a great break from roads and cars.

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Then the real fun started. After the bike trail basically I was on a 4 lane divided highway the rest of the way. I didn't think this would be a big deal as the shoulder was still giant but it was a big difference. Cars were going like 70 mph and changing lanes which means they sometimes tend to stray closer to me which means I have to pay more attention. On the plus side camping was turning out to be easier than expected all 3 nights. First night I camped near some old rock quarry in the forest before Leonardtown, second night I camped in some tiny regional park that was basically a fishing pond just past Highesville and the third not I camped in some 60 acre national park which basically was just some old house the NPS had bought.

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Just when I thought 4 lanes were bad, I connected to Highway 210 and got a 6 lane divided highway. At this point I was basically in DC commuting traffic. Somewhat ironically the shoulder actually got smaller but it was still ok. I only really had one issue, around Franklin Square Park my shoulder actually turned into a lane of traffic and all I had was like a 1' wide space with a zillion cars coming at me. There was a signal light ahead holding cars up so I ran as fast as possible but couldn't make it the 1/3 miles and had to face traffic head on for a few minutes till I reached the safety of turning off on a lesser road.

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A lesser road of course is actually almost worse as these roads have no shoulder and are still really busy with DC traffic. But I was heading to a good cam spot so I walked a mile or so with sketchy traffic and no shoulder. In the morning I pretty quickly hit sidewalk and then had a really cool and complicated walk around the National Harbor and across the Woodrow Wilson bridge. From there I picked up the Mount Vernon bike trail again and connected my steps to the Crystal springs metro station where I left off a few days ago. I then found air conditioning as soon as humanly possible.

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PHT done!