How We Escaped the Heat Wave Today

We went to the top of Mount Davis and sat in the woods for a few hours because it was too hot to do anything else today.

Mount Davis is the highest point in Pennsylvania. This was easy for me to remember for a geography test because at the time, I lived in the same part of Somerset County as the mountain. My family visited – and still visits – it fairly regularly. Here is a picture of some of us from 1992, posing on the rocks that mark the true high point:

Since it’s a part of Forbes State Forest, it has near its true summit a metal observation tower / fire tower. (The tower is in the background of the above picture.) I believe that the tower is about 50 feet high. I have climbed the tower since I was kid, and I climbed it today.

The picture above was taken near the top of the tower, looking down at the ground.  Below is the photo that I took today (July 1, 2012) at the top of the tower, facing Laurel Ridge 15 miles in the distance. Look at that haze! I would like to note that the high today in New Kensington was in low 90’s. It was about 80 degrees today at Mount Davis.

For a frame of reference, here is a photo that I took of the tower last autumn:

Finally, here is a time-lapse video that Jonathan took of the fire tower last summer.