Traverse City Adventure: From Cumberland to a hostel in Rockwood, Pa.

DAY 8 • 19 AUGUST • TRAVERSE CITY ADVENTURE

CUMBERLAND - We left the Cumberland Inn at 0800 headed for Rockwood in Pennsylvania on the Great Allegheny Passage. Over the course of the next 47 miles, we crossed the Mason-Dixon Line, passed through long stretches filled with wild flowers and butterflies, ate lunch in Frostburg, and rolled into a hikers and cyclists hostel on Main Street in Rockwood. The first 21 miles of the day’s journey - headed toward the Eastern Continental Divide, was a slight uphill, as have been all the miles since we left Washington D.C. and headed up into the Appalachians.  The second half was much nicer and now we’re inclined downhill all the way to Pittsburgh and picking up speed as a result.

Rockwood was once a vibrant coal town but most of those jobs and their related economy have faded. The Great Allegheny Passage has a given the town a real economic shot in the arm over the past decade.  

At the Rock City Tavern, we ate their signature wings, drank Yuengling lager - a good Pennsylvania beer from America’s oldest brewery - and split a baked Italian sub.  The melted cheese, warmed meats, thin crusty roll, and softened onions, peppers, lettuce and tomatoes blended beautifully and reminded me how much I like baked subs, especially with cold beer.

Outside, a fierce early evening thunder and lightning storm dropped temperatures quickly and washed the streets.  The slick Main Street reflected the image of a long office building, outsized for the scope of Rockwood’s size.  It was an insurance company that locals told us was once a major employer in the area.  “It made a business of bonding coal mines against problems,” one man told us, and expanded its business over the years to include all kinds of workers’ compensation insurance.  Eventually, he said, another firm bought out the company and moved jobs to other parts of the country.

I mentioned the modern-looking appearance of the block-long building.  

“Just a facade,” said the man on the bar stool next to Becky, just finishing his wings and beer.  “A pig in a skirt,” he said with a grin.

We slept well in the thin-mattresses hostel bunks, despite the long whistle-wailing trains that roared by the town about every hour and a half through the night about 50 yards behind the hostel.  The valleys where the towns are located funnel the trail whistles, making them a constant in the mountains, even moreso than the winds and storms that weather brings.

The young lady at the desk in the Rockwood Opera House building - who also served as innkeeper for the hostel - handed us ear plugs - along with two pairs of single sheets - before we walked down the street to the former butcher shop/grocery that now houses the hostel.

“You might need these,” she said with a knowing smile.

She was right.

Total miles on this adventure now up to 287.5.  We’ll pass the 300 mark tomorrow, about a third of the estimated1,000 miles to Traverse City.

Next stop: Ohiopyle on the Youghiogheny River.