Blue Knob (

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

) is a summit in the eastern

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

with a broad dome that is the northernmost 3,000-footer in the

Allegheny Mountains The Allegheny Mountain Range ( ) — also spelled Alleghany or Allegany, less formally the Alleghenies — is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada. Historically it represented a significant barr ...

. It is the highest point in

Bedford County, Pennsylvania Bedford County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 47,577. The county seat is Bedford. The county is part of the Southwest region of the commonwealth. History 18th century According to ...

. The mountain is the site of Blue Knob State Park and contains approximately 18 miles (29 km) of hiking trails and numerous overlooks. An alpine ski area is located on the mountain's north slopes. The towns of

Pavia Pavia ( , ; ; ; ; ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, in Northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino (river), Ticino near its confluence with the Po (river), Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was a major polit ...

and Claysburg lie at the foot of the mountain, and Johnstown, Altoona, and

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population was 106,940. Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford local government district. Bedford was founded at a ford (crossin ...

are located within .

Geography

The satellite peaks of Blue Knob include: Herman Point , Spruce Knob , Round Knob , Cattle Knob , Pine Knob , Ritchey Knob and Schaefer Head . Summits to the north include Brush Mountain (17 miles), Schaefer Head (2.5 miles) and the other satellite peaks listed above, The "Loop" in Tussey Mountain (27 miles) and Lock Mountain (13 miles). To the east the views are of Dunning Mountain (7 miles), Tussey Mountain (16 miles), Jacks Mountain with Butler Knob (31 miles),

Sideling Hill Sideling Hill, also Side Long Hill, is a long, steep, narrow mountain ridge in the Ridge-and-valley Appalachians, Ridge-and-Valley (or Allegheny Mountains) physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains, located in Washington County, Maryla ...

(28 miles), and on the distant horizon Big Mountain (41 miles) and the Tuscarora Mountain Ridge. To the south are

Wills Mountain Wills Mountain is a quartzite-capped ridge in the Ridge and Valley physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania and Maryland, extending from near Bedford, Pennsylvania, to near Cumberland, Maryland. It is the northernmo ...

(32 miles), Savage Mountain (28 miles) and Bald Knob on the

Allegheny Front The Allegheny Front is the major southeast- or east-facing escarpment in the Allegheny Mountains in southern Pennsylvania, western Maryland, eastern West Virginia, and western Virginia. The Allegheny Front forms the boundary between the Ridge-an ...

(20 miles). The town of Bedford is hidden by

Kinton Knob Kinton Knob is a peak that is located in Bedford County, Pennsylvania. Geography Kinton Knob marks the north end of Wills Mountain where it abruptly ends just southwest of the town of Bedford. The mountain has an array of communication towe ...

(18 miles). The views west include Laurel Hill with the Conemaugh Gorge (22 miles), and the

Allegheny Plateau The Allegheny Plateau ( ) is a large dissected plateau area of the Appalachian Mountains in western and central New York, northern and western Pennsylvania, northern and western West Virginia, and eastern Ohio. It is divided into the unglacia ...

. ;Drainages A few of the major streams are Big Lick Branch, Rhodes Run, Pavia Run, Deep Hollow Run, Scubgrass Creek, Beaverdam Creek and Little Beaverdam Creek. Bob's Creek which is in the valley below the mountain is a "Class A" trout stream and popular among local fisherman. Adjacent to the mountain on the Allegheny Front are Big Break Hollow and Wallacks Branch, portions of these streams are located within the State Park boundary.

Geology

Blue Knob and its subsidiary peaks form a grouping of mountains that stand out as a

massif A massif () is a principal mountain mass, such as a compact portion of a mountain range, containing one or more summits (e.g. France's Massif Central). In mountaineering literature, ''massif'' is frequently used to denote the main mass of an ...

from the rest of the

and form some of the highest elevations in Pennsylvania's

. Blue Knob is separate from the rest of the Allegheny Front

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...

, and the mountain's lower base is made up of

siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility. Although its permeabil ...

and

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

of the

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...

Catskill and

- Mississippian Rockwell formations. The upper slopes and

summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used only for ...

are made up of the buff-colored Mississippian Burgoon Formation of

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

and conglomerate, which is far more resistant to weathering than the underlying shale and siltstone.

History

Blue Knob was thought to be the highest mountain in Pennsylvania until 1921, when the

U.S. Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on March ...

determined a summit of was higher (later named Mount Davis). In the 1950s the summit was cleared of vegetation and was the location of Claysburg Air Force Station until it was deactivated in 1961. Shortly afterward the Blue Knob Ski area was developed. Signs from the former station remain on the summit, and one building remains as a ski lodge. Ski lifts, a ski lodge and a couple of maintenance structures occupy the broad summit of Blue Knob, and a few ski chalets are downhill of the bald summit.

Climate

The state record snowfall of was recorded on Blue Knob during the winter of 1890–91. In December 1890 alone, fell on the mountain. Average snowfall is about annually, while temperatures usually are cooler than in the surrounding towns. Blue Knob's weather can be attributed to its aspect and elevation. The mountain rises approximately above the plateaus to the west, and over above the lowlands to the east. The

prevailing winds In meteorology, prevailing wind in a region of the Earth's surface is a surface wind that blows predominantly from a particular Wind direction, direction. The dominant winds are the trends in direction of wind with the highest speed over a partic ...

hit the mountain's slopes, accelerating up and over its bald summit. It is these conditions that can cause

wind chill Wind chill (popularly wind chill factor) is the sensation of cold produced by the wind for a given ambient air temperature on exposed skin as the air motion accelerates the rate of heat transfer from the body to the surrounding atmosphere. Its va ...

factors to dip below zero during the winter months.

Vegetation

Eastern Hemlock ''Tsuga canadensis'', also known as eastern hemlock, eastern hemlock-spruce, or Canadian hemlock, and in the French-speaking regions of Canada as ''pruche du Canada'', is a coniferous tree native to eastern North America. It is the state tree of ...

trees are located along streams of the mountain's lower slopes, and the drier east and southeast face of the mountain is predominantly a

Red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

and

White oak ''Quercus'' subgenus ''Quercus'' is one of the two subgenera into which the genus ''Quercus'' was divided in a 2017 classification (the other being subgenus ''Cerris''). It contains about 190 species divided among five sections. It may be calle ...

and maple mix, with grapevines and some exotic

invasive species An invasive species is an introduced species that harms its new environment. Invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native spec ...

where there are holes in the canopy. The north and west faces of the mountain contain Tulip poplar, American Beech and other associated hardwoods due to the richer soils. The upper slopes of the mountain have Black Cherry, Striped Maple,

Scrub Oak Scrub oak is a common name for several species of small, shrubby oaks. It may refer to: *the Chaparral plant community in California, or to one of the following species. In California *California scrub oak ('' Quercus berberidifolia''), a widesp ...

and a forest floor of

blueberry Blueberries are a widely distributed and widespread group of perennial flowering plants with blue or purple berries. They are classified in the section ''Cyanococcus'' with the genus ''Vaccinium''. Commercial blueberries—both wild (lowbush) ...

and

fern The ferns (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta) are a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissue ...

. Over the contour the trees are distinctively stunted due to the winds and fierce weather. In September 2004, during Hurricane Ivan, strong winds streamed through the saddle between Herman Point and Blue Knob. Many of the larger trees were blown down, opening holes in the forest canopy.

Wildlife

Wildlife Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introdu ...

is abundant on the slopes of Blue Knob. Species such as

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known Common name, commonly as the whitetail and the Virginia deer, is a medium-sized species of deer native to North America, North, Central America, Central and South America. It is the ...

ruffed grouse The ruffed grouse (''Bonasa umbellus'') is a medium-sized grouse occurring in forests from the Appalachian Mountains across Canada to Alaska. It is the most widely distributed game bird in North America. It is non-migratory. It is the only spe ...

turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans''), also known as the American jackal, prairie wolf, or brush wolf, is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the Wolf, gray wolf, and slightly smaller than the c ...

porcupine Porcupines are large rodents with coats of sharp Spine (zoology), spines, or quills, that protect them against predation. The term covers two Family (biology), families of animals: the Old World porcupines of the family Hystricidae, and the New ...

and fox are difficult to see, but finding their tracks in the snow is not uncommon. Black bears are also resident on the mountain and are more likely to be seen during the early morning and evening hours.

Red-tailed hawk The red-tailed hawk (''Buteo jamaicensis'') is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It is one of the most common members of ...

warbler Various Passeriformes (perching birds) are commonly referred to as warblers. They are not necessarily closely related to one another, but share some characteristics, such as being fairly small, vocal, and insectivorous. Sylvioid warblers T ...

s, vireos and songbirds are found here throughout the seasons. Adjacent to the state park is the Pennsylvania State Game Lands No. 26. This area combined with the park creates an area of over of public land. There are a few areas in Blue Knob State Park which are closed to hunting (see park map). Hikers need to be extremely careful during the hunting season in late November and through December.

References

*Alan R. Geyer (1979) "''Outstanding Geologic Features of Pennsylvania''", Geological Survey of Pennsylvania *Charles H. Shultz (1999) "''The Geology of Pennsylvania''", Geological Survey of Pennsylvania *Jere Martin (1997) "Pennsylvania Almanac" published by: Stackpole Books

External links

*
Current conditions at Blue Knob

Blue Knob Ski Area
{{Authority control Allegheny Mountains Mountains of Pennsylvania Mountains of Bedford County, Pennsylvania