Charcoal trail photo tour, Catoctin mountains

April 6, 2021

Charcoal Trail

Today, my son and I decided to go for a hike in the Catoctin Mountains. The trail was short, only about a half mile loop…somehow we managed to be gone for 3 hours. With a half hour drive, one way, I didn’t expect to be gone so long.

Anyway, here are some of the photos I took…I plan on doing a longer post with more detail in the very near future. But not today.

I’m publishing from my cell phone, so the layout is a bit different.

Hope you enjoy the little sneak peak…

Wood haulers would use wagons and a pair of work horses or mules to haul half a chord of wood at a time to the designated area(s), called a hearth. The next step would be burning it in “chimneys”.

A Collier was part watchman, firefighter and manufacturer. He could light as many as seven fires at a time…this is where he “lived” while keeping an eye on the fire. He got very little sleep when working with the fires.

The charcoal produced on the mountain, would be sent to the iron furnace, on the outskirts of Thurmont. Here the charcoal would be ignited so the iron could be separated from hematite iron ore. It was a big business back in the day.

This is the main road through the park…as you can see, it twists and turns, goes up and down. The road at the other end of the park was closed for a reason unknown to me. I don’t think the president is visiting Camp David and the weather is awesome right now…those are the two main reasons why they close roads in the park.

We couldn’t find the trail I originally wanted to take, so we opted for the charcoal trail.

Hope you have a great day!

Thanks for stopping by!!