This is a shot of the Allegheny Mountains off of I-70, looking north, just after one heads east out of the Allegheny tunnel near New Baltimore, Pennsylvania. It was a nice generic shot of the "middle" Appalachians that is typical of the remaining wild landscape of this part of the range, and I have been passing up using it in a post for several months now.
The land seen here is just east of the divide between the Ohio and Chesapeake watersheds, and so would technically have been part of the 13 colonies, though it is so deep into the more rugged parts of Pennsylvania that it probably remained a frontier until the 1830's or so, even as much American settlement was steadily pushing out into the central Midwest by then. The area does have larger towns such as Somerset and Altoona, but by and large, the land retains an undeveloped look to it. The forests here are largely an extension southward of northern elements like maple-beech forests and spruce-fir forests (on the higher ridges, including the one in the rear in this photograph). The elevations are not altogether as sharp in relief as they are in New England or in the Blue Ridge to the south, differing from top to bottom at most by 1,500 feet or so. On the whole, the scenery is soft, somewhat wild, and generally a good place to see some of the quieter and more natural elements of the Keystone State.
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