90 Years Of Hiking History: MCM Prepares To Celebrate Its 90th Anniversary

In the fall of 2024, the Mountain Club of Maryland will celebrate its 90^th Anniversary. Starting in May 2024, we will hold a series of events to celebrate this event and share information about our history, and our accomplish over nine decades, with our members and partners.

Below, we have provided some facts about our original founding and early history. Each month, we will share more information about MCM’s history; through short articles that will be posted as news blogs and then added to this page.

90th Anniversary Articles

MCM AND THE A.T. IN THE CUMBERLAND VALLEY: A TALE OF THREE TRAILS

July 25, 2024

The Cumberland Valley is a valley in Maryland (MD) and Pennsylvania (PA), extending from the Potomac River south of Hagerstown to the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg. It’s relevance to the Mountain Club of Maryland (MCM) is that the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) crosses 15 miles of the Valley in PA, and MCM maintains the Trail sections both north and south of it. The northern tip of MCM’s southern section ends where the Trail passes Center Point Knob and descends into the Cumberland Valley near Boiling Springs. On the north side, MCM’s northern Trail section begins where the A.T. reaches the top of Blue Mountain after leaving the Valley. Map 1 below shows the current route of the Trail as it passes through the Valley, with the MCM sections that border it on the north and south.

The Cumberland Valley section of the Trail has been maintained by the Cumberland Valley Appalachian Trail Club (CVATC) since the early 1990s. But before that, MCM was the club that maintained the Trail through the Valley for more than 55 years. During our tenure, the A.T. went through two major route changes after we assumed responsibility, so the Trail followed three much different routes during MCM’s tenure. (CVATC took over as the Trail club shortly after the second relocation.)

Why should we be interested in a section that is no longer maintained by MCM? Well, the events in the Valley are part of MCM’s history. In addition, they explain the question that our members occasionally ask: Why is there a “hole” (i.e., the Valley area) in MCM’s trail section? Consequently, as part of our 90^th Anniversary celebration, I am reviewing the historical events that led to the development of each of those three major routes. All three are shown on Map 2, and the background of how each route came into being is discussed below.

MAP 2

Trail 1: the Original Route

For a source of information about the planning and development of the original A.T. route in PA, I have relied on the book From Dream to Reality: History of the Appalachian Trail, Thomas R. Johnson, 1921, pages 214-223. As the A.T. was originally planned in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the proposed Trail route on the eastern side of the Susquehanna River moved across central PA on a series of low ridgelines through Lehigh Gap, Swatara Gap, and Manada Gap before reaching the east side of Susquehanna River just north of Harrisburg. On the other side of the river, the Trail was to join the existing Darlington Trail at Marysville and follow it west along Blue Mountain, which extended west from the river along the northern edge of the Cumberland Valley. But there was actually no river crossing at Marysville; you had to hike south six miles along roads toward Harrisburg, cross the river on a bridge that allowed pedestrians, then hike six miles north on the other side to return to the A.T. at Marysville—or cross the river illegally on a railroad bridge. On the western side of the river, at Marysville, the early A.T. planners intended that the Trail turn west onto Blue Mountain and follow the existing Darlington Trail for some distance. From there, the A.T. would need to leave Blue Mountain at some point and turn south toward MD and then reach Harpers Ferry (where the Trail would cross the Potomac).

As Thomas R. Johnson explains in his book, the route southwest of the river had to deal with challenges that would confound Trail clubs for years. It would be difficult to bring a trail down through the farms and private properties of Cumberland Valley, and as a result there were three different suggested routes supported by different Trail officials and clubs in the late 1920s and early 1930s. One proposal was to extend the Trail along Blue Mountain for about 30 miles from the Susquehanna River to Doubling Gap (now Colonel Denning State park), then bear south for 30 miles to Pine Grove Furnace State Park, where it would follow South Mountain into MD. Another group proposed to run along Blue Mountain for a shorter distance of about 11 miles to Sterrets Gap, then follow Tuscarora Mountain southwest to the Potomac at Hancock, MD–where it would probably have followed the C & O Canal to get back to Harpers Ferry.

A key decision maker for this issue was Myron Avery, a co-founder of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) who served as its president from 1927 to 1941, and also as chairman of the Appalachian Trail Conference (ATC) from 1931 until 1952. (Note that PATC was the Trail maintaining club for A.T. up to the Susquehanna at that time.) Avery preferred a third option: to descend south from Blue Mountain at the eastern side of the Cumberland Valley (i.e., closer to the Susquehanna River) to reach the northernmost end of South Mountain, and then follow South Mountain south through two PA state forests and into MD. After exploration, Avery picked Lambs Gap—only about 3 miles from Marysville on the Darlington Trail–as the point for the A.T. to leave Blue Mountain and turn south. He and another PATC official marked a Trail route south through the valley, walking entirely on roads, where the A.T. would then leave the Cumberland Valley at the northern tip of South Mountain southeast of Boiling Springs. That was the route that existed when MCM was assigned the maintenance responsibility for this section of the Trail in late 1934, and the route was used for more than 20 years (possibly with minor adjustments during that time).

To map the specific route that was followed through the Valley in those early years, I relied heavily on an Atlas of the Appalachian Trail that was prepared by MCM in the 1930s. This book was found in storage at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy regional office in Boiling Springs around 2016-2017. The book was returned to MCM, and it is now on loan to the A.T. Museum in Pine Grove Furnace State Park.

As the sample pages below illustrate, the atlas contains a series of map pages that show the original route of the Trail through the Cumberland Valley. The heavy dotted line on the first page shows the Trail “crossing” the Susquehanna and then moving west onto Blue Mountain on the existing Darlington Trail.

On the second map in the series, shown below, the heavy dotted line shows the Trail turning south at Lambs Gap and descending into the Valley.

Combining the lines shown on the individual map pages, I’ve drawn my estimate of the original A.T. route through the Valley as a green line on Map 2. For reasons that I will explain later, I also included the Trail route for an area south of Central Point Knob (i.e. south of the Cumberland Valley), all the way to Route PA-94. For that southern section, in addition to the Atlas, I was assisted by an old map provided by long time MCM member John Eckard—his map shows the early Trail route between Center Point Knob and Route PA-94. This green line on Map 2 above is my best representation of the Trail at the time MCM took over as maintainer in the 1934.

Trail 2: the 1950s Relocation

In my previous 90^th Anniversary article about the history of MCM hiking shelters, I mentioned Earl Shaffer, the first known person to thru hike the entire Appalachian Trail, which he did in 1948 and then again numerous times. Shaffer lived in PA and was an active member of the Susquehanna Appalachian Trial Club (SATC), and also an MCM member at times.

In the early 1950s, under the leadership of Shaffer and others, the A.T. on the eastern side of the river was moved further north onto a different set of ridges, including Peters Mountain, where it descended to the Susquehanna and then crossed on a highway bridge (the Clarks Ferry Bridge) into Duncannon (several miles north of Marysville). This eliminated the need to walk south to Harrisburg to cross the river. From Duncannon, the planners decided to take the Trail westward along Cove Mountain rather than follow roads back to Marysville. At the western of Cove Mountain, the Trail would descend southward to cross Valley Road (PA-850). From there, the Trail would climb up to the top of Blue Mountain, and then continue down the southern side into the Cumberland Valley, using Deans Gap Road.

That major shift in the A.T. led to the creation of a new, approximately15-mile, Trail section (which became part of MCM’s maintenance responsibility) on which Shaffer built the Bishop Darlington and Thelma Marks shelters a few years later. More information about this reroute and Shaffer’s role can be found at pages 302-304 of Thomas R. Johnson’s book.

I have read through our old MCM newsletters and Council minutes to understand MCM’s level of involvement in this major Trail reroute. The first mention I found of this planned change is in the MCM Council meeting minutes for March 1954, which simply mention that “An expected Trail change, crossing the Susquehanna at Clark’s Ferry was discussed.”

At the next Council meeting, there must have been more detailed discussion with Earl Shaffer in attendance, based on the April 1954 minutes: “The rest of the meeting was devoted to a discussion of Trail relocation from the Susquehanna which will be crossed at Clark’s Ferry. Mr. Earl Schaeffer (sic) recommended a lookout and spring near Duncannon be made use of, and he, Mr. Old, and Mr. Felton [MCM’s Supervisor of Trails] anticipate exploring the region in the next few weeks.”

There was further discussion at the May 1954 Council: “Mr. Felton also described the investigation on May 2 of area to be turned into a new path for the Appalachian Trail, so that new Susquehanna crossing place can be linked with existing trail. The motion was also made that the Club would protest a change in assignment of this area to a Harrisburg group, unless a general reapportionment of trail section mileage was decided upon by A.T. conference…” That last sentence suggests there must have been a concern that the new section would be assigned to another Trail club than MCM.

The follow month, the minutes for the MCM’s annual meeting show that the plans were discussed with the general membership: “A description of AT relocation was presented by Supervisor of Trails Lloyd Felton, pertaining to Duncannon crossing of the Susquehanna, to join existing trail at Dark Hollow.” Dark Hollow is a short distance south of Center Point Knob, so that sentence confirms that the Trail through the entire Cumberland Valley would be moved. (Since the new Trail route would descend from Blue Mountain about seven miles west of Lambs Gap, the whole route for crossing the Valley had to change.)

Nearly a year later, work was underway. In the April-June 1954 MCM Bulletin, the A.T. updates section of the newsletter included a statement that “Preliminary work is now underway for a relocation in Pennsylvania from a point east of Swatara Gap to follow Third Mountain north of Indiantown Gap Military Reservation then cross the Susquehanna at Clarks Fery and rejoin the Trail at Lambs Gap. This will avoid over ten miles of road walking and eliminate the detour to Harrisburg now required when crossing the Susquehanna.” (As it turned out, the statement about rejoining the Trail at Lambs Gap was incorrect.)

The July – September 1954 Bulletin reported that planning was underway regarding the MCM relocation: “The Pennsylvania relocations are still in the scouting stage. Two trips…under… our Supervisor of Trails Lloyd Felton, have been made into the area, west of the Susquehanna, in “MCM territory”. Ownership of land was investigated on the June 5 trip; it is necessary to secure permission of property owners before the Trail can be routed across their land. It is hoped that we will be in a position to get to work on the project in September…”

The October -December 1954 Bulletin reported that considerable progress had been made on the new Trail section:

Three more work trips by the Club, and one by Bob Stockbridge, Scoutmaster Bill Travers, and nine Explorers of Troop 57, have accomplished much on the Cove Mountain Relocation. The Trail route has now been established from Duncannon to just north of Conodoguinet Creek. [The creek is south of Blue Mountain in the northern part of the Valley.] Earl Shaffer, Chairman of the Relocation Project, has put in an enormous of personal work, usually meeting our groups as well as making numerous trips alone. Lloyd Felton, our Supervisor of Trails, expects to clear up uncertainties as to landowners’ permission soon; another work trip and a paint blazing job should enable us to tie in the new section before the end of the year.

The minutes of the November 1954 Council meeting reported that the work was finished: “The Supervisor of Trails reported the establishment of the tie-in at both end of the new and old trail, so that the relocation is usable. 8 trips were run, and the work finished on schedule.”

The 1954 MCM photo scrapbook includes a few photos of a work crew on Cove Mountain on September 26. The photo shows, and is corroborated by a description in a later Bulletin, that much of the Trail along the Mountain ran along an old dirt road, which would have reduced the amount of trail-building work.

While the new Trail route relied partially on existing roads, MCM opened a new trail of possibly 15 miles from Duncannon to the top of Blue Mountain at Deans Gap in less than a year. That was a significant accomplishment.

The February 1955 Council minutes mentioned that the opening of the new Trail will be held on March 20. The January – March 1955 Bulletin included a full-page announcement of the completion of the new Trail section, including a partial description of the route being used on the new MCM section:

MCM’s April – June 1955 Bulletin reported on the formal opening of the new Trail on March 20:

The Mountain Club, after many work trips west of the river, appeared forty strong at Camp Shikellemy in Clark’s Valley, to take part in the hikes and ceremonies attendant to the opening of the Pennsylvania relocation of the Appalachian Trail. The occasion was marked by the gathering of the clan; hikers from Trail clubs far and near drove into the campsite and were soon part of a long line that eventually totaled 125 or so wending their way up a blue-blazed trail to the crest of Peters Mountain. Here was brand new trail—the white-blazed A.T., and Earl Shaffer of “first to hike it” fame led the way first to a viewpoint and then down again to the cars.

To Os Heard, our [MCM’s] day’s trip leader, resplendent with the green Italian hat, the occasion brought memories of the time, twenty years before, when the M.C.M was formally assigned Trail to maintain. Of the M.C.M. group of that day, only he and Ruth Lenderking … were present to see M.C.M. trail signs go up anew.

Hawk Rock, on Cove Mountain, high above Sherman Creek and Duncannon, was the top scenic attraction and a hundred of so hikers followed the Trail to the top to enjoy the view…

Later that year, a statement in the July – September 1955 Bulletin summarized the work invested in the new MCM section: “eleven scouting and work trips, involving some 4800 or more miles of auto travel, were made to get our 26.4 miles of new Appalachian Trail, from Clarks Ferry to Wildwood Branch Notch, completed.” (That distance included the Trail through the Valley, which continued to use roads for much of the route, as well as the new section north of Blue Mountain.)

That same issue of our newsletter also included a discussion of additional Trail relocation work planned by MCM a few miles south of the Cumberland Valley:

In addition, we still have a relocation not completed. The Trail is blazed to beyond Dark Hollow Shelter from the north, but then there is a temporary section, the old Ernst Road, marked by very temporary signs only, to rejoin the Trail on Long Mountain. The plan is to eliminate both Long Mountain and the six-tenths on Route 94. The proposed route would pass close by the Whiskey Spring and go over two ridges, Rocky and Little Rocky, providing interesting hiking, rocks, and views.

There were progress reports on the planning of this section’s specific route in the next two newsletters. Finally, the April – June 1956 Bulletin reported that three recent work trips had made it possible to complete the Trail relocation between PA-94 and Dark Hollow. “The rocks and viewpoints on Rocky Ridge make this section almost spectacular, far more rewarding than anything on the route that has been abandoned.”

In regard to the 1954 relocation. I have gone into considerable discussion about the work that MCM did both north and south of Cumberland Valley because it was all part of a single large relocation of the Trail at one time, and the history of events causing that relocation affected the larger change. But what about the new route within the Valley itself? The road walk had to move because the Trail now descended Blue Mountain at a much different location. To determine the route of the new road walk, I have relied on information furnished by Craig Dunn. Craig was a long-time A.T. volunteer with MCM and SATC at that time (and later with a new Trail club for many years), and he provided me with the following description of the new road walk that existed after 1954:

The A.T. route across the Cumberland Valley… was approximately 90 percent along roads. After descending from White Rocks [near Center Point Knob at the south end of the Valley], the A.T. came to and followed Kuhn Road northward, then Leidigh Rd., Old Stone House Rd., Appalachian Drive, U.S. Route 11, and Bernheisel Bridge Rd., until reaching the Conodoguinet Creek. The only natural setting for the trail before the relocation was the one mile section from Bernheisel Bridge along the creek to Sherwood Drive. The trail then followed Sherwood Drive until on to Deer Lane and followed until reaching the junction with PA Route 944. After crossing Route 944, the A.T. followed Deans Gap Road and ascended Blue Mountain.

Using those directions, I have incorporated that road walk into the new (after 1954) A.T. route from Duncannon through the Cumberland Valley, and then south to Route PA-94, shown as a blue line on Map 2.

Trail 3: the 1980s Relocation

The 1950s Trail relocation eliminated the need for a long off-trail walk to Harrisburg to cross the Susquehanna River, but there was still a walk of about 12 miles on roads across the Cumberland Valley between the base of Blue Mountain and South Mountain. As the Thomas Johnson book describes on pages 475-480, by the 1970s that walk through the Cumberland Valley was on roads that had become more heavily traveled and lined with houses, stores, and farms than they had been 20 years ago. Trail clubs and A.T. officials began discussing where the Trail should be moved. The potential routes discussed were (1) the existing road route, (2) a route along an abandoned rail line, and (3) a “ridge route” along Ironstone Ridge–a rocky volcanic dike that ran through numerous farms in the valley. Since that rocky stretch was not usable for farming, the National Park Service (NPS) and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) considered it as the best route for an off-road trail. At a meeting of Trail clubs with NPS, the general preference was to explore the ridge route.

However, when MCM’s Thurston Griggs and local PA persons began talking to local landowners about a government purchase of their land, there was a big backlash and vigorous protesting about the idea of a government land takeover. Community groups formed in the late 1970s to oppose a new route. To counter this, a pro trail group eventually coalesced to check the obstructions and provide accurate information. Gradually, local discussions became calmer, but in the early 1980s there was still considerable hostility to the idea of a new Trail route. However, the new director of the NPS explored the alternative routes himself and then expressed a preference for the ridge route.

A brief update in the February-March 1979 MCM News stated that, “The County Committee and CANT (Citizens against the New Trail) will decide in late spring whether to accept the National Park Service’s policy regarding a corridor for the Trail in the Cumberland Valley. It provides for a right-of-way of 50 feet (down to 25 feet in one short stretch) surrounded by a corridor of 100 feet on each side of the Trail, as a minimum…Some landowners north of the Valley (vicinity of Route 850) remain to be contacted. Landowners south of the Valley (between the Valley and Michaux State Forest at Tagg Run” will be approached within the next month. These last sentences show that the NPS was exploring land purchases to protect the Trail north and south of the Cumberland Valley, as well as to enable a new route through the Valley itself.

The debate went on for some time. Five years later, an article in the May 1984 MCM News reported that members of the SATC were using petitions and meetings and publicity to show support for the route preferred by the local trail community and conservation groups (the ridge route). The newsletter article noted that MCM’s participation in this phase was limited because PA residents needed to show the strength of local support.

The July 1984 News reported that MCM had joined a Cumberland Valley A.T. Crossing-Off-Roads Coalition, and also that a final determination of the route would be made by NPS in November. Our October 1984 News reported that NPS had released an assessment of the three possible routes across the Valley and was allowing 90 days for public comment. The actual decision took longer, as such matters usually do. A year later, the July 1985 News announced that NPS had released a supplement assessment of two alternative routes that were under consideration: a sidewalk across the Valley along the present road route, and a new rustic trail in a 70-feet wide corridor–the ridge route.

At the January 1986 Council, Thurston Griggs reported to Council members that the ridge route had been selected to replace the existing Cumberland Valley crossing. In the months that followed, NPS started working on land purchases to make the new route possible. At the February 1987 Council meeting, it was reported that NPS efforts to protect the Cumberland Valley land would take 2-3 years. The February 1986 News informed our members that ATC was working on the final determination of the route, and that NPS was having discussions with the PA Department of Transportation about an A.T. bridge across Route US-11, a busy highway

By 1987, trail relocation work was beginning. The March 1987 Council discussed possible work sites along Conodoguinet Creek or at the northern end of the Valley. The July Council minutes reported that 12 MCM members joined the work crews on June 6 along the creek and near Sherwood Drive, including six volunteers who stayed overnight and worked for a second day.

The January 1987 MCM News reported that a management planning group be formed to consider policies such as insecticide use, grazing, camping, non-hiker use, etc. MCM would be included as part of the planning group. It also reported that an A.T. footbridge over highway US-11 would be completed in a few years.

Meanwhile The October 1987 Council mentioned new scheduled trips in October and November. At the November 1987 Council, it was reported that 18 of the 25 workers on the last work trip were MCM members, and that they worked on the new Trail section from the Darlington shelter descending Blue Mountain to the Valley. While the trail work was underway, NPS land purchases activities were ongoing to protect the new Trail.

After a winter break, MCM’s work in the Valley went on through 1988. The February 1988 Council mentioned three upcoming work trips in March and April. Land purchase efforts to support the Trail relocation were also continuing. In addition, NPS purchased a land parcel and building in Boiling Springs; that building would serve as the ATC regional office for many years. At the November 1988 Council, once again there was a mention that work trips would resume in the spring, and a projection that the Trail should be finished in 1990.

MCM work trips continued throughout 1989 at a rapid pace, and our records for that year included more details of what was being done:

The July 1989 Hiker High Points (HHP) reported that an April work trip built four stiles across fences and planted posts with A.T. blazes in fields.
There was more work in May to finish a side hill trail, widen the Trail, and paint blazes.
The September 1989 Council reported on a need for volunteers to help with a bridge construction on the Valley route.
The September 1989 HHP noted that the new Trail would pass through 10 miles of farm fields, which would require a new load of maintenance work cutting heavy plant and weed growth.
The November 1989 HHP mentioned August and September work trips that cleared 2-3 miles of the Trail through woods and fields north of Boiling Springs.

At the November 1989 Council meeting, it was announced that the work trips to the Cumberland Valley for Trail construction would resume again in late February 1990. In addition, there would be work days on Saturdays to plant trees where the new route passed through open areas. The grand opening of the new Trail was scheduled for June 23, 1990. Thurston Griggs reported that NPS had protected 11 miles of Trail for the Valley relocation and that 4 ½ miles (22 tracts) were still to be negotiated.

The January 1990 HHP included a mention of a November work trip near Center Point Knob, indicating that the new Trail was close to reaching its connection to the old Trail at the southern end of the Valley. In the early spring, work began again at an intense rate with the goal of being ready for the June 23 grand opening. On two work trips in March 1990, MCM volunteers cleaned up an old farm dump and implanted 22 posts in fields for A.T. blazes. Tree planting days were scheduled on each Saturday in April.

It is worth noting that at the same time that the new Trail was being built in the Valley, MCM was also occupied with construction of its new Alec Kennedy shelter a short distance south of Center Point Knob. On March 31 and April 1, Mountain Club volunteers built the roof and walls. We can imagine that working on both these major projects, located in PA, at the same time, must have been a significant challenge on our volunteers’ time. But they kept showing up, demonstrating real commitment on the part of our members.

At the April 1990 Council, Thurston Griggs reported that the new Cumberland Valley A.T. Management Committee was handling issues that would otherwise need MCM’s attention, such as horses on the Trail, parking, what trees should be planted, moving signs, and the safety of buildings on purchased land. Meanwhile, in April 1990, an MCM work trip planted 23 posts, installed 14 bog bridges, and removed shrubbery. In May, work continued on bog bridges, hardening trail, painting blazes, and clearing brush in a last-ditch effort to ready the Trail for opening. By June 10, the Trail was open from Center Point Knob to Appalachian Drive near US-11. Our HHP article stated, that after 4 years of once-a-month work trips, a sign was nailed to a tree at Center Point Knob rerouting the Trail. Within five minutes, several north-bound hikers turned off onto the new path. (Meanwhile, work went on to paint blazes, add more posts, etc.)

The planned June 23 grand opening of the new Trail had to be postponed until September 22 because the US-11 footbridge was not finished. Instead, 27 workers and friends hiked a section of the new Trail to view the results of years of work and also toured the new Kennedy shelter, before enjoying a cookout at Pine Grove Furnace.

Then MCM went back to work. In July, volunteers continued to clear brush north of route PA-944 on the south side of Blue Mountain. In August, work focused on trail construction between Bernheisel Bridge Road and US-11, as well as placing more posts and building another stile.

In the July 1990 HHP, there was an announcement that the new Trail route from Center Point Knob to the PA Turnpike in the Valley was now connected. About half of the remaining four miles had also been completed but were not fully interconnected, in part because of delays in finishing the new footbridge across US-11. That article also stated that so far, a total of 105 MCM volunteer had donated more than 1500 hours of work to the building of the new Trail.

The same article also reported that although hikers would be able to cross the Valley off roads in September, there were still several remaining properties to be purchased before an optimum route could be finished. Several bog bridges and two major stream bridges would still need to be built in the future. An endangered plants species and some archeological remains had been found which would have to be bypassed. Work would continue to mend fences, remove trash, and demolish buildings.

The current A.T. route through the Valley, which is basically the Trail built in that 1987-1990 relocation–with probably a few minor changes over the years–is shown by the red line in Map 1 and Map 2.

And work had also been continuing at the Alec Kennedy shelter. The September 1990 HHP announced that the Alec Kennedy shelter was completed (although a privy had not been built yet). As mentioned earlier, it must have been a very intense volunteer effort for MCM to have worked simultaneously for years on the new Trail and also on the new shelter.

At the November 1990 Council meeting, it was reported that a new Trail club was being formed that would take over maintenance responsibility for the Cumberland Valley section of the A.T. The January 1991 Council meeting announced a January meeting in Boiling Springs to set up the new Trail club for the Valley, which became the Cumberland Valley Appalachian Trail Club (CVATC).

Our newsletters for those years included only a few photos of the work that MCM performed on all the work trips in the Valley, which I have included below.

An article in the January 1991 HHP described the final work trip of the 1990 season (in November) working on several footbridges. (Note that two of the volunteers at that trip were John Eckard and Steve Williams. Patty Williams was not at that November trip, but she was part of many of the other work trips that built the new Trail. And those three are very still active in making MCM a great club more than 30 years later!)

The March 1991 HHP discussed various collateral efforts related to the new Trail section that were still underway, such as a walkway along the Bernheisel Bridge and safety signs at a road crossing. Enhancements to the new section would go on for some time.

The September 1991 HHP included an article informing our members that ATC had designated the Cumberland Valley Appalachian Trail Management Association to be the newest Trail club, with responsibility for 18 miles of the A.T. between Center Point Knob on the south and the top of Blue Mountain on the north. The article provides an informative summary, so I have copied the whole article here.

Concluding Observations

During its 56-year period of responsibility for the A.T. in the Cumberland Valley, MCM experienced two major relocations of the Trail in and surrounding the Valley. The first one, in the 1950s, involved a much larger trail distance since it extended all the way from Duncannon to Route PA-94. In that case, the changes within the Valley mostly involved rerouting on different roads, and the new Trail on Cove Mountain used existing old roads for part of the route, but completing the entire job in about a year must have taken a lot of commitment and hard work

The second reroute in the late 1980s was focused on a shorter distance inside the Valley (from the top of Blue Mountain to Center Point Knob, but the overall effort seems to have been more complex, involving issues of initial community opposition and many land purchases by NPS. While those headaches were mostly dealt with by local partner organizations rather than MCM, the job that required the work of MCM volunteers was still extensive–building entirely new Trail through a variety of terrains, including fields and farmland, road and highway crossings, multiple stream crossings and the new route up Blue Mountain. Over a four-year period, MCM brought a very large number of work trips and volunteers to the Valley to help build the new Trail section. There certainly would have also been many local PA volunteers working on this effort, but we only have information about MCM’s involvement in our records.

It’s not clear when MCM knew that it would no longer be maintaining the Trail in the Valley, but that knowledge seems to have made no difference in MCM’s commitment to completing that new large relocation. Or possibly the Mountain Club leaders were relieved that another club was taking responsibility for a large new body of Trail work. There is nothing in our old documents to provide an answer.

THE HISTORY OF THE HIKE ACROSS MARYLAND

July 18, 2024

Everyone in the Mountain Club of Maryland (MCM) knows about the Hike Across Maryland (HAM), of course. Hiking the entire 41-mile length of the Maryland (MD) Appalachian Trail (A.T.), with all its hills and rocks, is a great endurance test. Hikers and trail runners from other states often travel long distances to participate. And a very large number of MCM members (usually about 70) who don’t do the hike join in to help run the event—registering hikers, cleaning up the overnight facility used the night before the event, managing the food and drink stations, staffing the checkpoints, serving as section sweeps behind the hikers, driving in hikers who drop out back to their cars, etc. It’s a large, well-known, well-organized event that takes months of planning. In this article, as part of our 90^th Anniversary review of our club’s history, I’ll review how the HAM started and mention some noteworthy points in its history.

In the beginning, this long-distance hike across the entire Maryland length of the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) was called the Marathon. In an occasional year it was called the End-to-End hike, but usually it was the Marathon until 1997, when it was renamed the Hike Across Maryland (HAM). It has been known as the HAM ever since.

The MCM 50^th Anniversary book, MCM First Person: 1934 – 1984, in the front section about MCM’s first 50 years, included the following statement about the Marathon:

In 1940, someone decided that it would be “fun” to hike the entire thirty-eight miles of the Maryland AT in one day. Thus began the Marathon, unique at that time. Traditionally, this entails spending the night at the fire house in Blue Ridge Summit, so that hardy souls taking part may be fed and sped on their way before daybreak. In a different fashion, the master mind command and his helpers have as arduous a task as the hikers… Some have crossed the… bridge in early afternoon, others at 9 p.m., but it is a never-to-be-forgotten experience. It has been repeated many times by popular demand.

The first Marathon appeared in the hike schedule included in the April-June 1940 Bulletin, providing the following information:

I have not found any discussions in our early Council meeting minutes to explain what led to the scheduling of this first hike across the entire Maryland A.T. I also found no discussion of the results in the Council meeting minutes in the months after that hike. But the October-December 1940 Bulletin included a humorous hike report by Grace Wagner, one of the participants, which I have copied below. She reported that 21 hikers started the hike and 14 completed it.

Although the 50^th Anniversary book stated that hikers could choose to spend the previous night at the Blue Ridge Summit firehouse, that tradition started later. In 1940, the hikers slept on cots at U.S. Army Camp Ritchie, which was close to the Trail, the night before. As with the modern HAM, MCM volunteers provided food and refreshments along the way. A hot breakfast of bacon and eggs was provided at the Wolfsville shelter, and lunch was served at Washington Monument. The 1940 MCM photo scrapbook includes two pages of photos from the Marathon, including these:

The hike was not offered again until 1949. Perhaps the amount of work involved to manage the hike was found to be too onerous, or perhaps the hikers were not eager to repeat the ordeal. Certainly, the wartime gas rationing would have made it nearly impossible to carry out the hike between 1942 and 1946. In any event, the next offering was announced in the April-June 1949 Bulletin as a simple listing on the hike schedule:

Sunday June 26 Appalachian Trail Marathon across Maryland; Leader: Francis E. Old, Jr.

There was no additional information, but that issue of the Bulletin also contained no additional details about any of the other scheduled hikes —just the date and location of each hike.

As with the 1940 hike, there were no discussions of the Marathon in the Council minutes before or after the hike. But the October-December 1949 issue of the Bulletin did include a long hike report. Seventeen hikers started the hike and six of them finished–extremely hot weather may have reduced the number of participants. Once again, the participants stayed at Camp Ritchie the night before the hike. After a cold breakfast before starting, the hike began around 4 a.m. An “official breakfast” was offered at the Wolfsville Road shelter, lunch at Washington Monument, and refreshments at Crampton Gap (Gathland).

[NOTE: The term Dual Highway referred to route U.S 40 in the Hagerstown area.]

Unfortunately, there are no photos of this Marathon in the 1949 MCM photo scrapbook.

The Marathon hike was not offered again for more than two decades. Perhaps hikers disliked the long hike, or perhaps no one wanted to volunteer to take on the amount of work required to organize it. This long-distance event would next appear in the March-September 1971 trip schedule, which announced the following hike:

From this time forward, the hike has been held in early May instead of June in hopes of avoiding the summer heat–the May 1971 Council minutes specifically mentioned that the May date provided cooler temperatures. Thirty-one hikers started the event and 22 finished. There is no description of this hike in the July 1971 News. But we don’t have copies of the newsletter issues for May or June, so it’s likely there were details about the event in a missing newsletter. Likewise, we do not have a newsletter article about the 1973 Marathon. But we do have an article about the Marathon in 1975 and in most later years. We know that starting with 1975, hikers would spend the previous night at a firehouse in Blue Ridge Summit (just across the PA border), and MCM would bus them to the trailhead. That’s probably what happened in 1971 and 1973, as well.

From 1971 on, the Mountain Club offered the Marathon / End-to-End Hike / HAM every other year (i.e., every odd-numbered year) until 2019. In 2021, because of CO-VID, it was postponed until the following year. The HAM was held again in 2022 and 2024, and it is likely that we will continue to offer it in even-numbered years in the future.

The table below shows a set of basic information, to the extent it is available, for all the Marathon and HAM events. There are a few years when we do not have copies of the appropriate club newsletter issue that would have published information (including the number of hikers) after the race.

Paul Ives, alone or with his wife Ellie in early years, took the lead in organizing 12 Marathon events. Patty Williams managed the next eight HAMs, and now Sharon Sniffen has managed three. I’ve been a volunteer at six HAMs myself, and I have observed (and also heard from many HAM hikers) how well organized and managed the event is every time. MCM has been very fortunate to have a string of committed, skillful leaders who have (with the help of a large team of dedicated volunteers) led these events.

YEAR	COORDINATOR	NO OF PARTICIPANTS	NO OF FINISHERS
1940	Morgan Barr	21	14
1941	Francis Old	17	6
1971	Eloise and Bill Elmendorf?	31	22
1973	Eloise and Bill Elmendorf?	unknown	unknown
1975	Eloise and Bill Elmendorf	22	18
1977	Eloise and Bill Elmendorf	23	19
1979	Paul and Ellie Ives	26	22
1981	Paul and Ellie Ives	26	21
1983	Paul and Ellie Ives	37	27
1985	Paul and Ellie Ives	68	55
1987	Paul and Ellie Ives	46	38
1989	Paul and Ellie Ives	44	33
1991	Paul Ives	41	39
1993	Paul Ives	34	30
1995	Paul Ives	79	67
1997	Paul Ives	92	82
1999	Paul Ives	unknown	unknown
2001	Paul Ives	unknown	unknown
2003	Patty and Steve Williams	104	unknown
2005	Patty Williams	101	91
2007	Patty Williams	unknown	unknown
2009	Patty Williams	102	90
2011	Patty Williams	126	105
2013	Patty Williams	120	106
2015	Patty Williams	107	91
2017	Patty Williams	104	89
2019	Sharon Sniffen	123	89
2022	Sharon Sniffen	51	31
2024	Sharon Sniffen	73	56

It would be too voluminous to include the MCM newsletter articles for all the HAM events between 1975 and 2024 in this article. But below I have noted a few highlights of various HAMs, and changes that occurred over time, as well as HHP photos for many of the years.

Highlights of Past HAMs

The 1977 Marathon article has the first mention of the assistance of the Frederick Amateur Radio Club, which has provided invaluable support to these events ever since.

In May 1981, Kevin Lewis became the youngest hiker ever to complete the Marathon on the day before his 12^th birthday.

Hikers suffered through very wet weather in 1987 and torrential downpours in 1989.

In 1991 Council, six Boy Scouts ages 11-13 were among the finishers.

The August 1995 HHP included the following anecdote about that year’s Marathon: “This year’s anxiety—there is always one—was provided by the absence of hiker number 68 at several early checkpoints. After several calls to his wife to: confirm that he had not quite and gone home, to obtain his description, to get a description of his car to determine if it was still at the firehouse, and after notifying the police, we discovered that we had two hikers numbered 89. Yes—68 had his number on upside down!”

The 1997 event was the first time it was called the Hike Across Maryland, and it was the first time that section sweeps were used.

In 2003, Patty and Steve Williams took over as HAM coordinators, replacing Paul Ives. In later years, Patty took the lead as coordinator.

At the 2017 event, because of heavy rains, MCM volunteers strung a rope across Little Antietam Creek and helped hikers cross the stream safely.

In 2019, Sharon Sniffen took over the role of HAM coordinator, after many years of outstanding leadership by Patty Williams. Starting in 2019, hikers spend the night before the hike at Camp Round Meadow in Catoctin Mountain Park rather than the Blue Ridge Summit firehouse.

Because of CO-VID, the 2021 HAM was cancelled and held the following year. The HAM is still being offered every two years, but now it is held in even-numbered years.

In 2022, there were several days of heavy rains before the HAM, as well as downpours throughout the day of the hike. Both Little Antietam Creek and Warner Hollow stream crossings were submerged, and it was necessary to detour hikes around them on roads, and they also were detoured around High Rock for safety.

HAM PHOTOS

Almost all of the photos below come from our newsletter reports of the HAMs, although I do have a few taken by members.

1987

1989

1993

2003

The following photos of the 2003 HAM were taken by our long-time member Rosie Suit.

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

2017

2019

2022

2024

WORLD WAR II AND THE MOUNTAIN CLUB: TRAINS, TROLLEYS AND TRUCKS

July 10, 2024

The Mountain Club was only seven years old when the U.S. entered World War II. The wartime restrictions that went into effect the following year raised concerns among the leaders of our small club about whether its outdoors program could survive. Looking back to 80 years ago, it can be hard for us to appreciate how challenging the time must have been for a hiking and Trail club.

Starting in early 1942, gasoline was deemed a precious commodity that was needed to fuel military vehicles for the war effort. But Americans still needed fuel for their cars in order to get to work, so the government implemented a system to regulate the purchase of gasoline. Car owners were issued a Gasoline Ration Card that had One Unit tabs on the bottom that were punched when used. Along with the card, a windshield sticker with a specific letter was issued. The most popular was an “A” card/sticker that allowed the car owner to purchase about 4 gallons of gas each week. If you were employed in a factory that supported the war effort, you were issued a “B” card, while doctors, nurses, farm and construction workers, and mail employees were issued a “C” card, each of which allowed them to buy up to 8 gallons of gas per week. There were other specific cards, too, such as an “X” card for members of Congress, “E” for emergency vehicles, “R” for non-highway farm vehicles, and “T” for truckers. The limited ability to purchase gasoline meant that Mountain Club members could no longer drive long distances to trails.

The MCM Council meeting minutes during that time don’t really discuss the gasoline rationing situation directly—probably because everyone knew about it. But, as explained below, there are comments in various club documents that show the impact of gas rationing on MCM’s ability to continue our hiking program (especially since we were a mountain club) and to reach our Appalachian Trail (A.T.) section in Pennsylvania (PA) to do maintenance work.

In our 50^th Anniversary book, MCM First Person: 1934-984, which you can view at MCM-First-Person-50th-Anniversary.pdf (mcomd.org), the discussion of MCM’s history at the beginning of the book summarized the situation in this way: “Gasoline rationing during WWII led to a revamping of club hiking activities because it was necessary to rely heavily on public transportation. In general, work trips were suspended, but not completely.” I’ve reviewed our newly available newsletters and Council meeting minutes to get a better sense of what took place.

Impact on Hiking

In the July-September 1942 MCM Bulletin newsletter, the new club president, Os Heard, described the club’s dilemma: “What immediately lies ahead of us as a mountaineering group is of such a nature that the purpose for which the club was founded may be jeopardized… Practically all of our activities have been predicated on the use of automotive transportation and for the present we must find alternatives that dovetail into the expressed purposes of the club… I suggest we bend every effort to keep the club intact (1) by continuing hikes within a reasonable distance…and by conducting a series of symposia on mountains and mountaineering.” Clearly, the word Mountain in our name was very important to the club leadership at that time; if they could not hike in the mountains, they at least would try to schedule presentations about the mountains and mountaineering.

The following year, in his annual report printed in the July-September 1943 Bulletin, President Heard quoted a remark made by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) president: “As long as the war lasts, we… must of course bow gracefully to the necessary restrictions on our activities, but it is essential that we maintain a strong organization in order to make the most of the opportunities that may be offered.” Heard suggested that MCM shared this goal.

Forty years later, MCM member Winslow Hartford’s personal reminisce in the MCM 50^th anniversary book looked back at this period:

By June [1942], gas rationing had become a fait accompli, and the Club was faced with a decision—to cancel its trip schedule or to operate as best it could using public conveyances… The decision handed down by president elect Heard at the annual meeting was a wise and momentous one: “I suggest we keep the club intact by continuing hikes within a reasonable distance.”

Hartford served as the MCM Excursion Chairman during the wartime period, and he described our hike situation as follows:

It was a fascinating challenge. For three and a half years, our mountains become those accessible by the Ma and Pa, the Western Maryland, the Pennsy, the B&O, the Hanover bus, and the BTC [Baltimore Transit Co. trolley system]. Twenty members of MCM entered the services; one, Carl Anderson, failed to return. Appalachian Trail maintenance suffered for a while, but in 1943, the ODT [Office of Defense Transportation] ruled this a job for which a truck could be rented; so our work trips, with a promise of real mountains, became among our most popular activities.”

As Hartford explained, there were significant changes to the MCM hike schedule during the gas rationing period, with a complete focus on hikes that could be reached using public transportation (trains, buses, and trolleys). The old MCM documents that recently have been scanned by the Maryland State Archives (photo scrapbooks, newsletters, and Council meeting minutes) give us an opportunity to better understand the changes that took place.

Comparing trip schedules before and during the war gives us an insight about how hiking was affected. Here are the upcoming trips listed in the October-December 1940 MCM Bulletin—a year before the Pearl Harbor attack.

DATE	DESTINATION	TRANSPORTATION
Sunday, 10/6/1940	Peters Mountain, PA	Hikers would receive meeting place and transportation information when from the hike leader when they called to sign up
Saturday, 10/12/40	Little Gunpowder Falls
Sunday, 10/20/40	Upper Harford County – Falling Branch and Deer Creek
Saturday-Sunday, 10/26-27/40	Overnight and Halloween Party, Catoctin Recreational Area
Saturday, 11/2/40	Timonium to Padonia
Saturday-Sunday, 11/9-10/40	Shenandoah National Park
Sunday, 11/24/40	Caledonia, PA
Saturday, 12/7/40	Loch Raven
Sunday, 12/15/40	Ellicott City
Sunday, 12/22/2024	Bird census in Loch Raven

While this “prewar” schedule had plenty of hikes in the greater Baltimore area, there were also hikes to the Shenandoah Mountains, Peters Mountain (north of Harrisburg), the Catoctin area, and Caledonia State Park. Hikers were told the meeting place and travel plans when they contacted the hike leader (and some of them would be recruited as car pool drivers).

By contract, here is a list of upcoming hikes one year after our entry into the war, in the October – December 1942 Bulletin. Almost all hikes were in the greater Baltimore area, and some were in the city itself. There are a few hikes to southern PA and Thurmont, but every hike on the schedule relied on travel by train or trolley.

DATE	DESTINATION	TRANSPORTATION
Saturday, 10/3/42	Old Court Road / Mt Washington	No. 25 carline
Saturday-Sunday, 10/10-11/42	Overnight to farm on Western Run	Penn Station to Cockeysville Station, then 2-mile walk
Sunday, 10/18/42	Glen Echo – C&O Canal	Train to Washington + car ride
Monday, 10/26/42	Moonlight Hike – Bare Hills	Meet at Mt. Washington, No. 25 carline
Saturday-Sunday, 10/31 – 11/1/42	Gunpowder Falls	Leave from Penn Station
Sunday, 11/8/42	Thurmont	Western Maryland Railroad from Penn Station
Saturday, 11/14/42	Lorraine / Woodlawn Section	No. 25 carline to Lorraine
Sunday, 11/22/42	Padonia to Cockeysville	Leave from Penn Station to Cockeysville
Sunday, 11/29/42	Glen Rock, PA	Leave from Penn Station
Saturday, 12/5/42	Herring Run	Meet at Walther Ave and Harford Road
Sunday, 12/13/42	Carrolton (Patapsco River}	Leave Penn Station on Western Maryland Railroad
Sunday, 1/10/43	Ellicott City to Randallstown	Meet at B&O Station in Ellicott City
Saturday, 1/16/43	Lake Roland Area	Meet at end of No. 24 carline
Sunday, 1/24/42	Perryville	Leave from Penn Station

The photo scrapbooks from those years add a better sense of the hikers’ experiences. Below are some photos showing hikers assembling at various train stations as they head out to, or return from, MCM hikes.

Here are photos of MCM hikers waiting at the Thurmont station on October 24, 1943, and May 31, 1944

Overall, this use of mass transit was successful in keeping the club’s hiking program going, although the number of participants declined. In the Oct-Dec 1943 newsletter, the report of the Excursions Committee stated,

For the first time since the Club’s organization, private cars and chartered busses have been unavailable and it has been necessary to use the facilities afforded by the railroads operating out of Baltimore… The schedule has been maintained at an activity comparable with past year. 30 trips were held during the season, including 3 overnights, 1 all-night, and 8 Saturday trips. 379 hikers… attended the trips, as compared with 832 hikers last years. The demands of war activities, as well as the increased cost and more limited scope of the trips all contribute to this decrease. However, several trips, particularly those reaching mountain areas, compare favorably in attendance with similar trips run by private car in previous years.

In his own personal reminisce in the MCM 50^th Anniversary book, Alex Kennedy provided a first-person description of a couple of those hikes:

The outbreak of World War II, of course, materially affected the growth of the club and the time available for its activities. It survived primarily by using regularly scheduled public transportation. Two trips occur to me; on one, we went up to Hampstead by bus and walked over to Parkton, returning by the North Central Railroad. Since it snowed steadily and was so cold that at lunchtime the water in our canteens was frozen solid, this trip was afterwards referred to as the Retreat from Moscow… On the other, a very few of us were able to go up to the Rocks area, on a typical summer day, by the Ma and Pa railroad. A really threatening storm developed on the return trip, blowing down a large tree across the tracks. …[W]e organized a volunteer group among the passengers and eventually succeeded in reopening the right of way.

Despite the difficulties, the club did find ways to schedule some longer mountain hiking trips, such as a week-long “pack trip” in Shenandoah National Park in August 1943. But it appears that only four members undertook the rigors of the railroad trip.

There was a larger attendance at this week-long White Mountains trip in August 1944, which must also have relied on railroad travel.

In the latter part of 1945, rationing must have ended, because the Oct-Dec 1945 Bulletin announced a transition policy:

IMPORTANT: This schedule represents a transition to MCM peace-time ways. It is not an “all-out” schedule, but rather a compromise, permitting us to once more “go to the mountains” without imposing too much strain on cars or tires. Trips for the present, are at cost; later, private are trips may be converted to bus trips at no increase in cost.

FOR CAR DRIVERS: Private car trips are scheduled to go not over 100 miles from Baltimore, and hikes will be so scheduled that a speed of 35-40 mph need not be exceeded…

Because of the uncertain food situation, we are not making arrangements for supper, as a club, on Sunday trips. It will therefore be wise to take along a little extra to eat on the way home.

The trip schedule in that final 1945 Bulletin had a selection of hikes that were more remote from the Baltimore, but some of the hikes were still relying on mass transit, as shown by the photos below.

But the January-March 1946 schedule has no mention of using trains to reach hikes, which suggests that using automobiles was the norm again.

MCM Members in the Armed Forces

Of course, a substantial number of MCM members served in the armed forces during the wartime period. In the July-September 1943 Bulletin, president Os Heard wrote: “During the past year we have not only increased our membership by 10% but we have given up 7% to the armed forces.” A year later, the July-Sep 1944 newsletter included a Secretary’s Report which includes a statement that “The Club membership at present comprises 89 members, 3 honorary members, and 15 service members, a total of 107.” Those numbers suggest that about 14% of members were in the service in 1944.

Council minutes mention that the club sent Christmas cards to the members who were in the armed forces. And through the war, the MCM newsletters included special pages devoted to its members in the services—they weresometimes called the Roll of Honor and sometimes the Service Page–that reported on the location of its service members and sometimes included their own reports of their activities. I’ve included some examples below:

Here is a Roll of Honor page from the April-June 1943 Bulletin.

Here is the Service Page from the October-December 1943 Bulletin.

And here is the Service Page (2 pages) from the January-March 1944 newsletter.

The club also adopted a policy of making their facilities available to U.S. armed services members who were not Mountain Club members. I’m not clear what facilities MCM had to offer—they probably meant that service members could participate in the club activities as guests; there is a mention in one report that a service member attended one of the club square dances as a guest.

Appalachian Trail Maintenance

Overall, the maintenance of the entire Appalachian Trail languished during the 1940s because the nation’s resources were focused on the war effort. Trail work stopped where it could not be reached by public transportation. Some sections were closed during the war because of military activities. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) crews that had been doing Trail relocations ended. And many Trail clubs’ members went into the services.

A few years after the war, when Earl Shaffer did the first end-to-end thru hike in 1948, many parts of the A.T. were still not passable. Shaffer had to bushwack long distances at multiple areas because of a lack of blazing, or because whole Trail sections had been destroyed—e.g., by a hurricane in one case, and by the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway in another. In fact, the Appalachian Trailway News had recently published an article stating that such a hike was considered impossible, especially considering the poor condition of the Trail after World War II. (See From Dream to Reality: History of the Appalachian Trial, Thomas R. Johnson, pp. 262-265 and 279-281.)

Since MCM’s assigned section of the A.T. was about 100 miles from Baltimore, reaching the Trail to perform work, with the added constraint of gas rationing, was even more challenging than it had been before the war. But Mountain Club leadership showed considerable dedication in their efforts to carry out work trips to its Trail section during the war years.

The trip schedules provided in the quarterly MCM newsletter issues (the Bulletin) in the years right before the war suggest that the usual MCM practice was to schedule several work trips to the Trail in the spring. Sometimes there were additional trips in the fall, but not always.

For example, the April-June 1941 schedule shows work trips on May 24 and June 15, with no planned work trips shown in the other Bulletin schedules in 1941. Similarly, the schedule for the spring of 1942 shows two planned work trips on May 24 and June 14, but none in other 1942 schedules. The May 1942 Council minutes indicate that a bus was available for the work trip, but it would mean another “deficit” for the club. The Council agreed to accept the loss in order to finish our section of the Trail. This probably happened before the gas rationing rules were implemented, so it seems likely that the club probably had rented buses for work trips in previous years to accommodate large numbers of volunteers.

But the effect of gas rationing on Trail maintenance became evident in 1943, when MCM announced that volunteers would need to travel to our Trail section by train. The April-June 1943 Bulletin listed a planned three-day work trip on May 29-31 and provided the following information to its volunteers:

The problem of Trail maintenance is definitely acute at this time. Parts that have been well cared for will easily carry over a year. Sections adjacent to regular transportation routes should be looked after at all costs. Every effort should be made to have them cleared in late May or early June… It will take a minimum of two days if we go to Harrisburg… What ever plan is followed we will probably make the work trips two day camping trips if this can be arranged.

Another section of the same newsletter gave more details:

Comes spring and again the underbrush starts to grow along the A.T. Getting to the Trail this year will not be as convenient as in the past, but it can be done… Much of the trail we have maintained in the past can be reached by train or bus via Harrisburg. In any case it will be necessary to plan on an overnight trip, packing in some miles to this overnight camp.

The weekend of May 29-31 has been set apart for work trips. …Train service is available to Brandtsville [near Boiling Springs], leaving at 2:15 P.M. Saturday, returning Monday morning.

Despite the travel constraints and the distance to our A,T. section, MCM clearly was dedicated to its Trail responsibilities.

In the October-December 1943 Bulletin, the trail supervisor reported that the weekend of June 19 saw six MCM members working on the Trail section between PA-94 and Brandtsville. He reported that after a crowded train trip to Harrisburg on the Pennsy, the ride to Boiling Springs on the Reading was a joy. A local resident at Boiling Springs gave them a ride to Dark Hollow. There was no train returning on Sunday, and the bus they planned to return on was packed full, so they had to wait for a later bus. This June 19 trip may have occurred as a replacement to the planned 3-day May trip, because I did not find any report of results for a May work trip—or the June trip may have been a follow-up. Either way, the description shows the challenges MCM volunteers endured to keep up its Trail work. And the fact that there were only six volunteers suggests that the travel difficulties discouraged volunteers.

The next spring another work trip to PA involving travel by train was planned, but government rules changed in time for MCM to change its approach. The schedule in the April-June 1944 Bulletin announced that anther multi-day work trip would take place on July 1-4, 1944, but soon after, in the June 1944 Council minutes, it was reported that MCM would be able to rent a truck for the July work trip. The club hoped to obtain 20 volunteers based on the capacity of the truck.

The July-September 1944 newsletter announced the reason for this change:

EXTRA. ODT regulations permit our hiring a truck to do the important job of maintaining our section of A.T. Incidentally, a chance to visit the mountains. Because of restricted capacity of the truck, registrations are limited to those who really want to clear trail.

This must have been a big improvement over the challenge of volunteers traveling to the Trail area by train and then facing the possibility of foot travel to reach the Trail.

That same July-September 1944 newsletter also reported on a completed July 2 work trip (replacing the planned 3-day trip) for which MCM used a rented four-ton truck. Twenty-four (24) volunteers rode 140 miles in the truck to work on 10 miles of the Trail. Apparently, a lot more members were willing to undertake a long truck ride than deal with train and bus rides. There was a discussion in Council minutes of a second trip in the fall, but apparently that trip did not take place.

The MCM scrapbook for 1944 includes one photo of that work trip.

Given the full turnout for that work trip and the ones that followed the next year, the idea of a truck trip to the mountains must have felt like an adventure. The following year, in his review of 1945, the trail supervisor reported that during the year MCM was able to operate three work trips since rental trucks could now be used for this purpose. The average attendance for those trips was 25 persons—a full truck load of volunteers. Even in the spring of 1946, after the end of the war, MCM continued to use a truck to transport volunteers to its work trips. But the July-September 1946 schedule indicated a bus would be used for a September trip–apparently indicating that work trips, as well as hikes, had now returned to prewar practices.

View Past 90th Anniversary Articles

By clicking on any of the links below, you can view some of the earlier 90th Anniversary articles about aspects of Mountain Club of Maryland history.

Who Were Our Founders?

Women in the Early Mountain Club

The Disappearance and Rediscovery of the Center Point Knob Plaque

The History of MCM Trail Sections in Pennsylvania

The History of MCM’s Role Maintaining the A.T. in Maryland

Gimme Shelter: A History of MCM Appalachian Trail Shelters

Future Topics

History of the Hike Across Maryland
The Appalachian Trail in the Cumberland Valley
Decade-by-Decade change in club activities and programs

Our 90th Anniversary Celebration

MCM will be celebrating our history and success throughout the next year. We have scheduled a series of events:

Anniversary Hikes: During the upcoming months, we will offer a number of hikes that attempt to recreate the routes of early club hikes. If you would like an opportunity to hike in the bootsteps of our club founders, look for the ANNIVERSARY HIKE designation in the hike title or hike description.
Kinetic Sculpture Parade: On May 4, 2024, an MCM float will participate in the Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Parade. (For more information about this annual event sponsored by the Baltimore American Visionary Art Museum, click here: Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race (kineticbaltimore.com).
MCM “In-Person” History: Member Reminisces and Stories: starting in May, we will invite our members to submit anecdotes or reminisces about their experiences with MCM, which will be shared on our web site.
MCM Celebratory Gathering: On September 29, 2024, MCM will hold an event at the Howard County Conservancy to celebrate our 90^th Anniversary. While the planning is still underway, we anticipate the event will include hiking, food, music, and more STAY TUNED FOR MORE DETAILS.
Of course, we will also recognize and celebrate our 90^th Anniversary during our regular club events such as the Hike Across Maryland in May, the club picnic in June, and the Holiday Party in December.