Great Allegheny Passage - Landmarks Along The Trail

Landmarks Along The Trail

As the trail nears completion, the route has become increasingly popular for "through-travelers" including hikers, backpackers and cyclists traversing portions of the route from destination to destination, or the entire trail from end to end. Ample facilities have been provided for such users, including campsites, touring companies, and park facilities. In Maryland this is due to the pre-existing facilities of the National Park Service for the C&O Canal towpath into Washington, D.C.; along the trail itself, facilities are maintained by a variety of local organizations under the Allegheny Trail Alliance (see below), along with the pre-existing facilities in Ohiopyle State Park, already a popular destination for whitewater river-rafting and sightseeing.

The Great Allegheny Passage is the key connecting segment of the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail, creating an off-road sight-seeing and backpacking corridor hundreds of miles long. Notable landmarks along the trail include:

• Fallingwater, a national architectural landmark designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
• Carrie Furnace, part of the Steel Valley Heritage Trail, along the Monongahela River.
• Ohiopyle State Park, bisected by the Youghiogheny, the most popular whitewater destination on the east coast.
• Salisbury Viaduct, 1,908 feet (0.4 mi; 0.6 km), up to 100 feet (30 m) high across the Casselman River valley.
• Meyersdale, Pennsylvania Museum.
• Bollman Truss Bridge in Meyersdale, one of the two surviving cast-iron truss bridges in North America.
• the Eastern Continental Divide, the highest point of the trail, passes through a short tunnel embellished with paintings of the area's history and a map of the trail's elevation contours: "It's all downhill from here!"
• Big Savage Tunnel, 3,295 feet (0.6 mi; 1.0 km), lighted, carries the trail through Big Savage Mountain two miles east of the Eastern Continental Divide; there's a popular scenic vista just east of the tunnel.
• Mason-Dixon Line: the border where the trail crosses between Pennsylvania and Maryland
• Borden Tunnel: 957 feet (292 m) long, unlighted.
• Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, a working steam railroad operating next to the trail from Cumberland, Maryland to the college town of Frostburg, Maryland (and return).
• Brush Tunnel: 914 feet (279 m) long, lighted; the trail and the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad share this tunnel and pass through it side-by-side.
• Cumberland Bone Cave: (two or three miles west of Cumberland, Maryland: an archeological site containing bones of saber-tooth tigers and other extinct animals; it was discovered during construction of the railroad.
• Canal Place, the head of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in Cumberland, Maryland where it meets the former Western Maryland Railway (WM) and rail-trail. In the 19th century WM's predecessor railroads delivered coal, flour and other products to a wharf for transfer to canal boats destined for Williamsport, Maryland and Georgetown, Washington, D.C.