Rail-Trails Mid-Atlantic: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC and West Virginia [Paperback]

Rails-to-Trails-Conservancy (Author)

Book Description

Series: Rail-Trails | Publication Date: December 28, 2006

The official guidebooks for the nationwide rail-trails system, the new Rail-Trails series books have an easy-to-use layout and design, clear maps, and precise trip descriptions. With more than 65 rural, suburban, and urban trails spanning 800 miles, Rail-Trails Mid-Atlantic covers trails in Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. Stroll through shady pines and deep forests, visit a Christmas tree farm, and watch grazing llamas along the mid-Atlantic's historic rail-trails. Includes two-color maps for each trip and succinct directions.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy is a membership-based organization with more than 100,000 supporters who are dedicated to converting former railroad corridors into multiuse trails.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Wilderness Press; 1 edition (December 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0899974279
• ISBN-13: 978-0899974279
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #107,594 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #10 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Individual Sports > Cycling > Excursion Guides
  • #34 in Books > Professional & Technical > Transportation > Railroads

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic resource, October 10, 2007

By 

A Keck - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Rail-Trails Mid-Atlantic: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC and West Virginia (Paperback)

This book is a wonderful guide to bike trails. It makes planning trips easy and fun, and it's very descriptive about the specifics of each trail (gravel, grass, paved, etc.)

I thought I could just find this info on the internet, but to no avail, so I bought the book. I was nicely surprised that the book is exactly what I needed, good descriptions of each trail and a good map, AND how to get to the beginnings of each trail.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Resource, August 4, 2010

By 

Bob - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Rail-Trails Mid-Atlantic: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC and West Virginia (Paperback)

We live in Illinois and use the Rail-Trails Midwest book all the time for planning trips and dreaming of trips. We picked up the Mid-Atlantic version for a trip to Maryland in the spring. We've already used this book for two trails in Maryland and a trail in Virginia, which we went out of our way to ride based on the information in this book. Rail trails are perfect for our family with three young children, minimizing our interaction with cars and dramatic grades. I can't do the same routes I might do alone, and so it is great to have a resource to identify these perfect trails.

You will still need to supplement the information in this book with research on current trail conditions, but this book is a gateway to wonderful trips for the whole family.

3.0 out of 5 stars Lacking in detail, poor maps, January 12, 2012

By 

Paul0 (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rail-Trails Mid-Atlantic: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Washington DC and West Virginia (Paperback)

This book is probably most useful if you want to browse one or several states for trails, you'd rather not use the internet, and you're partial to rail-trails. But there are alternatives to this book that are preferable in other situations.

If you're interested in a particular trail, and need to find lodging or restaurants along the trail, or are interested in the terrain near the trail, the brevity of each trails' description here, and the low-detail non-topographic maps are a handicap. You'd do better with google.

Several examples: suppose you're interested in Deckers Creek Trail near Morgantown WV: neither the text nor the map tells you that the trail rises 1000 feet. Most roads intersecting the trail are not named. There's no mention of the coke ovens along the trail. And this trail is not listed in the index.

Or consider the Allegheny Highlands Trail, Maryland. Today almost everybody calls this the Great Allegheny Passage, or GAP. This book was written in 2006, but its four paragraphs on this trail do not mention the grade, do not mention the Big Savage Tunnel (just across the border in PA), do not mention that it is possible to take a bicycle on the Western Maryland Railroad, do not include a photo of the steam train (instead they have a photo of a parking lot), and their map does not show Cumberland. Disappointing.

The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Towpath in Maryland is barely mentioned in this book -- it's a canal trail, not a rail-trail, you see.

Personally, I prefer google searches, and I go to maps.google.com and turn on Bicycling. I bought this book, but I doubt that I'll use it much. If I do, it will be most valuable as a starting point: just to learn that a trail exists.