Allegheny Mountains

The Allegheny Mountain Range (also spelled Alleghany and Allegany) -- informally, the Alleghenies -- is part of the Appalachian Mountain Range of the eastern United States and Canada. 

It has a northeast-southwest orientation and runs for over 500 miles from north-central Pennsylvania, through western Maryland and eastern West Virginia, to southwestern Virginia.

Name

The name derives from the Allegheny River. The word comes from the Lenape (Delaware) Indians. Its meaning is not definitively known, but is usually translated as "fine river". There is a Lenape legend of an ancient tribe called the "Allegewi" who lived on the river and were defeated by the Lenape (Stewart, 1967). Allegheny is the French spelling, such as the Allegheny River which was once part of New France, and Allegany is the English spelling, as in Allegany County, Maryland, a former British Colony.

The word "Allegheny" was once commonly used to refer to the whole of the Appalachian Mountains. John Norton used it (spelled variously) around 1810 to refer to the mountains in Tennessee and Georgia. John Muir, in his book A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf (written in 1867), used the word "Alleghanies" for the southern Appalachians. Other people used the word "Appalachians". There was no general agreement until the late 19th century. 

In the 1860s Arnold Henry Guyot published the first systematic geologic study of the whole mountain range. His map labeled the range as the "Alleghanies", but his book was titled "On the Appalachian Mountain System". The term "Appalachian" became commonly used for the whole range, first by geologists and eventually, everyone (Stewart, 1967).

Geography

The eastern edge of the Allegheny Mountains is marked by the Allegheny Front, which is also the eastern terminus of the Allegheny Plateau of which the mountains are a part. The highest ridges are just west of the Allegheny Front, which has an east-west elevational change of up to 3,000 feet. Absolute elevations of the Alleghenies reach nearly 5,000 feet, with the highest elevations in the southern part of the range. The highest point in the Allegheny Mountains is Spruce Knob (4,863 ft), in Pendleton County, West Virginia. 

Other notable Allegheny highpoints include Thorny Flat, Bald Knob, and Mount Porte Crayon, all in West Virginia, Backbone Mountain, the highest point in Maryland (3360 ft), and Mount Davis (3,213 ft/979 m), the highest point in Pennsylvania.

To the west, the Alleghenies grade down into the dissected Appalachian Plateaus -- the Allegheny Plateau to the north and the Cumberland Plateau to the south. To the east of the Alleghenies lies the Ridge and Valley Province of the Appalachians, which itself is flanked on the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia and South Mountain in Pennsylvania. The mountains to the south of the Alleghenies, the Appalachians in westernmost Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and eastern Tennessee, are the Cumberlands.

The Alleghenies are drained by a number of gorges, principally the North Branch of the Potomac River and the New River.

Much of the Monongahela and George Washington National Forests (in West Virginia and Virginia) and the Jefferson National Forest (in Virginia) lie within the Allegheny Mountains. These mountains also include the Dolly Sods Wilderness, Laurel Fork Wilderness, and Cranberry Wilderness. The Alleghenies of West Virginia are also famous for their forests of red spruce, balsam fir, and mountain ash, trees typically found much farther north.

The mostly completed Allegheny Trail, a project of the West Virginia Scenic Trails Association since 1975, runs the length of the range within West Virginia. The northern terminus is at the Mason-Dixon Line and the southern is at the West Virginia-Virginia border on Peters Mountain on the Virginia-West Virginia border.

Geology

The bedrock of the Alleghenies is mostly sandstone and metamorphosed sandstone, quartzite, which is extremely resistant to weathering. Prominent beds of resistant conglomerate can be found in some areas, such as the Dolly Sods. When it weathers, it leaves behind a pure white quartzite gravel. The rock layers of the Alleghenies were formed during the Alleghenian orogeny.

Because of intense freeze-thaw cycles in the higher Alleghenies, there is little native bedrock exposed in most areas. The ground surface usually rests on a massive jumble of sandstone rocks, with air space between them, that are gradually moving down-slope. The crest of the Allegheny Front is an exception, where high bluffs are often exposed, revealing an exceptional view.

References

• Stewart, George R., Names on the Land, Boston: 1967.
• The Journal of Major John Norton (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1970)
• McNeill, G.D. (Douglas), The Last Forest, Tales of the Allegheny Woods, n.p., 1940 (Reprinted with preface by Louise McNeill, Pocahontas Communications Cooperative Corporation, Dunmore, W.Va. and McClain Printing Company, Parsons, W.Va, 1989.)
• Rosier, George L., Compiler, Hiking Guide to the Allegheny Trail, Second edition, West Virginia Scenic Trails Association, Kingwood, W.Va., 1990.
• USGS GNIS - Allegheny Mountains