Welcome to Cache Across Maryland 2024. This is one of ten caches placed for the 2024 Cache Across Maryland. Each location was picked specifically to give geocachers a taste of the state and show you its beauty. By combining all ten, you'll be able to see why Maryland is truly "America in Miniature". We hope you enjoy them! You must find a minimum of ten caches prior to the picnic held on Saturday, May 11, 2024 in order to receive a free Maryland Geocaching Society CAM geocoin.
Make note of the code word found inside each cache container. You must enter all the words into an online decoder in order to print a claim form to print and submit to receive your geocoin at the picnic, as well as your CAM certificate. More info on CAM is available HERE.
Paw Paw Tunnel
***Bring a flashlight***
Hours: Dawn to Dusk
No fee required
The Paw Paw Tunnel is a 3,118-foot-long (950 m) canal tunnel on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O) in Allegany County, Maryland. Located near Paw Paw, West Virginia, it was built to bypass the Paw Paw Bends, a six-mile (9.7 km) stretch of the Potomac River containing five horseshoe-shaped bends. The town, the bends, and the tunnel take their name from the paw paw trees that grow prolifically along the nearby ridges.
Built using more than six million bricks, the tunnel has been described as "the greatest engineering marvel along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Historial Park." Located at milepost 155.2, the tunnel served to eliminate six miles of canal and is credidted with contributing to the economic success of nearby Cumberland, Maryland.
Construction on the tunnel began in 1836 and was expected to be completed within two years at a total cost of $33,500. But the project proved far more complicated and costly than expected, and the tunnel did not open until 1850, more than a decade behind schedule.
The project was delayed for many reasons. Not only did the construction company underestimate the difficulty of the work, violence frequently broke out among the immigrant laborers of different ethnicities, and wages often went unpaid due to the company's financial problems. By the time the tunnel was finally completed at a price of $600,000, it had nearly bankrupted the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company. Due to the high cost and long delay in completing the tunnel, the construction ended at Cumberland, Maryland, falling short of the original plan to take it all the way to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The tunnel was used by the canal boats until the C&O Canal closed in 1924. The tunnel and towpath are now maintained for public use as a part of the Chesapeake and Ohio National Historical Park. Though never one of the the longest tunnels in the world, Paw Paw Tunnel remains one of the greatest engeneering feats of its day.
Today Paw Paw Tunnel can be easily explored using a flashlight, as the towpath is still intact. Trekkers can return via the tunnel, or hike back over the two-mile-long Tunnel Hill Trail. This passes interpretive markers about the German and Irish workers who lived along the path during the tunnel's construction.
A rockslide in January 2013 closed the trail east of the tunnel for four month, so the tunnel could not be reached from the east side. It reopened on April 17, 2013.
Teh NPS started a two-phase construction project to fix the scaling of the rock on the downstream tunnel approach in 2017. The first phase, which addressed the most urgent sections of the deteriorating rock slope, had been completed. The second phase began the first week of May 2019 and addressed additional hazards downstream of the newly completed section. The cost is listed as $750,000.
More information on Paw Paw Tunnel can be found HERE.
After you exit the tunnel, follow the boardwalk until you come to the trail winds upwards to the right and follow this. When you get to the area where the path makes a sharp left u-turn, the cache is in this area. The cache is a lock-n-lock container, hidden off trail in a log. Please hide as well as found or better. Do not go past the No Trespassing signs please.
