Motorcycle Travel Photographer and Writer Allegheny Mountains Picture
The Allegheny Mountain Range, informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less developed eras. The Allegheny Mountains have a northeast–southwest orientation, running for about 400 miles (640 km) from north-central Pennsylvania, southward through western Maryland and eastern West Virginia. The Alleghenies comprise the rugged western-central portion of the Appalachians. They rise to approximately 4,862 feet (1,482 m) in northeastern West Virginia. In the east, they are dominated by a high, steep escarpment known as the Allegheny Front. In the west, they slope down into the closely associated Allegheny Plateau, which extends into Ohio and Kentucky. The principal settlements of the Alleghenies are Altoona, State College, and Johnstown, Pennsylvania; and Cumberland, Maryland.
- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It should come as no surprise, when viewing this photograph, that this area is no where near one of "…the principal settlements…" in The Allegheny Mountains. To the contrary this may be one of the most remote, yet extraordinary, views of the range. This image was captured somewhere along Route 250 when I was riding northwest from Waynesboro, Virginia towards Durbin, West Virginia; where I was to rendezvous with my friends from the Long Island BMW Riders Club. We would spend two nights together, scattered between RVs and tents in a campground and much more comfortable accommodations in the adjacent lodge. Over the next couple of days I would discover that the state of West Virginia is truly one of the most beautiful in the country. The roads are a motorcyclists delight…well-maintained and lightly travelled. From a motorcycling standpoint the state offers some of the most technically-challenging roads I’ve ever ridden upon…Route 250 certainly being one of them; with its radical elevation changes, wicked switchback turns and distractingly beautiful scenery. One of the day trips we took out of the campground took us south past the radio telescope at Green Bank, West Virginia (the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope); then west to the summit of Snowshoe Mountain for more stunning views of the Allegheny Range. Leaving the camp on the final day my route took me out past Seneca Rocks, a national recreation area in the Monongahela National Forest. That day’s trip is one that I will NEVER forget as it was laced with some of the worst mountain thunderstorms I’ve ever ridden into. So bad were these storms that I literally had to "sit it out" a couple of times while the torrential rains cascaded down around me. It wound up taking five hours to traverse the first 90 miles of that day’s ride. Images of all these noteworthy spots appear elsewhere on this web site. Somewhere I have an iPhone photograph of my bike sheltered at a gas station/convenience store during one of the deluges but I have no "real" photos of the storm. It was so bad I wouldn’t even consider taking my expensive photo gear out of its waterproof carrying cases. The image you’re looking at here, taken under much more favorable conditions, was captured using a Nikon Z7 mirrorless camera and Nikkor zoom lens. The RAW image was processed using Adobe Lightroom software and converted to black and white with a few adjustments in Adobe Photoshop. My "digital darkroom" is contained in my Apple MacBook Pro computer which travels with me on the road…a road well-travelled, in all sorts of conditions, by this photographer, writer, motorcycle traveler and adventurer...