Low Point: Great Lakes Region (600-246')

...But first, a quick spin around the Great Lakes. There are five of them, as I'm sure you recall from grade-school geography:

Formed by glacial activity at the close of the last ice age, these lakes cover 94,250 square miles of land and contain 21% of the world's surface freshwater by volume. This water flows first into storm-driven Lake Superior,

Side Trip: Gobbler's Knob, PA (~1300')

In order to avoid the toll-heavy Pennsylvania Turnpike on my way to Ohio, I detoured through the dull, woodsy, modestly mountainous heart of Pennsylvania. Halfway through, I found myself in a strange little town with an inordinate fondness for deformed beavers:

or so I first thought. A storefront on Main Street cleared up my confusion:

This wasn't just any Alleghenian hamlet. It was the weather capital of the world, a mecca for marmot prognostication, and home to the most famous of my mutant mountain groundhogs' untainted brethren: Punxsutawney, PA.

Side trip: Delaware Water Gap

The traffic, as though to wish me a special welcome to the Northeast, was bumper-to-bumper in the Philadelphia suburbs that afternoon. It took me so long to inch my way up I-476 that I almost skipped the Delaware Water Gap (I'd meant it as a midpoint stop between Ebright and New Jersey's high point), but I'm glad I didn't, since it turned out to be the most visually impressive place I saw on this trip until the White Mountains. Blame that on bad weather in the Adirondacks if you like, but you must admit that this:

is really something. Enough, I'd say, to make up for both that morning's disappointing Azimuth and the tepid flatness of Pennsylvania's own high point (remember Mt. Davis? I barely do).

Highpoint #1: Mt. Davis, PA (3213')

I’m on the road now! Since I have limited access to both the Internet and writing time (I’m out here to see the mountains, not to pen the next Great American Doorstop), expect these posts to be more terse and photo-heavy. They’ll also be somewhat time-delayed (again, due to limited Internet access)—so keep in mind that everything described in these posts has already happened, most likely days ago. If you’re reading it, I survived it.

I set off from home on the 2^nd under hazy gray skies, heading for the Pennsylvania high point by way of Maryland. Conditions stayed overcast until just after my car summited the first ridge (passing right beneath the Appalachian Trail), when they cleared up almost immediately. There’s a shining example of mountain weather for you.

I stopped for lunch along I-68 at the dramatic road-cut through Sideling Hill, MD.

Windy!