I climbed Mount Davis in the midst of Hurricane Fran on September 7, 1996. 

It certainly added drama and cut down on the crowds to a drive up peak. 

Mount Davis is the summit of 30-mile long Negro Mountain (which has been P.C.'d from its earlier name). According to legend (which is officially emblazzoned in a bronze tablet on the summit), the name reflects a resident who was slain by Indians while attempting to rescue a white party. Mt. Davis itself is named for the man who surveyed it. 

We drove out the Pennyslvania Turnpike to within about 100 miles of Pittsburgh in the midst of the hurricane before turning south on the highpoint rich Highway 219 through Meyersdale. 

Signs clearly pointed the way to Mount Davis. However, emergency lights were flashing and a camera crew scampered through the bottom of a hill in the middle of town. A light chocolate-colored stream oozed through town. Water gushed out of pumps on either side as buildings attempted to drain their basements. 

A bearded Amish man rode through the water in his horse and buggy. I followed suit. The rain let up. 

As we neared the summit, a thick fog rolled in and we could several trees had fallen. We kept going up past a radio tower, past the Mount Davis Picnic Area, and past a blue sign on the road proclaiming "The Highest Point in PA" (the other sign was covered with graffiti proclaiming "Rats"). 

Just opposite the sign was a short trail to Baughman Rocks (the handicap accessible trail was the Eagle Scout project) where you gaze upon several deeply creviced rocks and read the tale of where Mr. Baughman ("an ill-tempered man") threw one of his sons to die. 

The road to the high point observation tower (South Wolf Rock Road) begins just down the hill (about a mile from the picnic area). At the base of the silver-colored observation tower are several bronze tablets describing the region's geological and human history. At the top of the tower is a bronze relief map of the region. 

Even though Mt. Davis is the lowest of the closely bunched state highpoints that dot the Appalachians from here to Georgia, the weather was decisively different at the summit -- colder, wetter and more windy. Naturalists report that trees here are indeed more stunted. The summit is punctuated by frost heave rock formations where a rock is thrust upward at the center of concentric circles. The USGS summit marker is on top of one of these. 

From here we took the road down through Salisbury, which is a picturesque mountain community with American flags flying on every pole. Two hours and 50 miles later down 219 we were on top of Backbone Mountain in Maryland.