It’s a good day to be a C&O junkie… the Park Service has finally reopened the Big Slackwater portion of the trail, meaning we’re *this close* to having the entire trail reopened from Georgetown to Cumberland with nary a detour in sight. There’s the little matter of the much newer detour by Great Falls to dispense of, but that might be done soon.

In any event, riding this portion of the trail was of great consequence to me personally, because it was the only piece of the trail I had yet to ride… of course I’ve ridden the detour many times. It seems to have been worth the wait… it’s a 5 mile (ish) stretch that includes the formerly impassable portions that have now been converted into gorgeous concrete roadways mere feet from the Potomac. Figure the flooding issues will always be issues, but these structures don’t look like they’ll be too subject to the whims of the river.* Figure it chops off about 30-40 minutes of the ride compared to the former detour, which is nice because that’s 30-40 minutes closer to beer o’clock at the cabin on the second day of the ride from DC…

All in all, my favorite part of the trail. Good job NPS!

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*Be sure to remind me with headline links to “Massive flooding closes C&O trail again” later this winter. Jinx.