CUMBERLAND -- Along the Potomac River from here to Washington, the defense never rests.
Saved 45 years ago by the hiking boots and eloquent words of a Supreme Court justice, the C&O; Canal towpath is again the subject of a trek to bring attention to its plight.
Next month, about 50 walkers will retrace the steps of Juice William O. Douglas, who stepped off March 20, 1954, from Cumberland in a part-crusade/ part-publicity-stunt to keep the 185-mile dirt path from being paved over for a parkway.
This time, the hikers are concentrating efforts on two features -- one natural, one man-made -- that have been battered by time and weather.
A 1-mile segment of the towpath at a river bend called Big Slackwater, near Hagerstown, has been washed away by flooding, diverting hikers and bikers inland. Restoring Big Slackwater could cost as much as $12 million.
The second project, repairing the Monocacy Aqueduct in Frederick County, will cost $5.5 million. The stone bridge, which carried the canal above the Monocacy River, is held together with trusses and steel bands. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has placed it on its list of most endangered sites.
"This is a fragile park -- 200 feet wide on average," says John Viner, chairman of the C&O; Canal Association hike. "The essential feature of the park is its continuity. These are two threats to that continuity."
Park Superintendent Douglas Faris says a temporary bypass on the bluffs above Big Slackwater could be built this fall, but the intention is to restore the original towpath.
In May, the National Park Service hopes to outline a plan for Monocacy Aqueduct.
Closer to Washington, repairs are almost finished on the segment of towpath obliterated by the floodwaters that followed the blizzard of January 1996. Barring bad weather, Faris says, the canal from Great Falls to Georgetown could be filled with water by mid-April.
"This canal's future is not assured without the support of the public," Faris says. "We could still lose a substantial part of it. In many ways, the conservation battles have to be refought ..."
In 1954, the towpath was being eyed as a potential roadbed for a two-lane scenic parkway. Its fate seemed sealed when the Washington Post weighed in editorially on the side of asphalt.
Douglas took exception in a letter to the editor two weeks later: "It is a refuge, a place of retreat, a long stretch of quiet and peace at the Capitol's back door -- a wilderness area where man can be alone with his thoughts, a sanctuary where he can commune with God and nature, a place not yet marred by the roar of wheels and the sound of horns."
He invited the writer of the editorial to hike with him, saying, "One who walked the canal its full length could plead its cause with the eloquence of a John Muir."
Two days later, the Post accepted. Robert Estabrook, 35, who wrote the editorial, and Merlo Pusey, 52, the Pulitzer Prize-winning associate editor of the newspaper, teamed up "to spell each other against the justice," who was 55.
The two scribes were encouraged by colleagues. An editorial in the Winston-Salem Journal took to poetry:
Estabrook and Pusey are
Men who can meander far
So Douglas may be in distress
When he tangles with the press.
But the outdoors editor for the Post knew a trap when he saw one. "The heaviest things [Estabrook] has lifted lately, other than occasionally his feet, are four-syllable adjectives plopped down at impressive places in his diaconal dissertations," Aubrey Graves wrote in his column.
At 8:30 a.m. (two hours behind schedule) March 20, Douglas, Estabrook, Pusey, five other journalists and about 30 other men left Cumberland under threatening skies. Several men wore ties and fedoras. Estabrook and Pusey wore grim expressions.
Douglas set a 4 mph pace. Nine men dropped out after the first day.
The second day, it snowed, Douglas dropped his speed to 3 mph, and most of the reporters dropped out.
"I'm ready to die any time now," wrote George Kennedy of the Washington Star.
Estabrook was mellowing. "Out here," he wrote in a March 22 editorial, "the first signs of spring seem far more important than the antics of self-inflated wild men or what Congress does with the tax bill."
As the hikers approached Sharpsburg, they encountered a pro-towpath sign: "Justice Douglas, keep to right. Booby traps to left for Post editors."
But not everyone favored the towpath. "Justice Douglas: Brunswick Favors Parkway," said a banner stretched above the path.
By the start of Day 5, Pusey was on horseback and the hike was down to 10 walkers, plus Douglas. Estabrook had disappeared from all news accounts.
The oldest of the hikers, George Frederick Miller, 73, attributed his stamina to homemade white pellets the size of eggs made of milk powder, honey and peanut butter.
On the eighth day, they rested. Douglas and eight other men covered the final several miles in a canal boat, waving their hats to thousands lining the waterway.
Three days later, the Post reversed course on the parkway. Six years after that, President Dwight D. Eisenhower named the towpath a national monument. In 1971, it became a national park.
The C&O; Canal Association, formed by the light of Douglas' campfire on the last night of the 1954 hike, has retraced his steps every five years since 1974.
Ken Rollins, who lived along the canal and saw Douglas finish in 1954, walked in 1974 and has signed up again.
This time, Rollins, 78, will use a bicycle part of the way.
"People come from across the country to hike with us," he says. "They want to walk in Bill's steps."
Hike chairman Viner says the event is "an appropriate time for taking stock."
"You either enjoy it and save it, or you ignore it and lose it," he says. "It's not only at our back door, it is our backyard."
Candus Thomson is a reporter for The Sun.
Pub Date: 03/21/99