Birthday Bike Trip

Frostburg Fossils

While riding the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail five years ago I passed many trailside rock layers that looked like good places to find fossils. One particular site was near Frostburg, MD where I found fossil leaves during the 2013 ride. I hoped to return there some day to hunt more fossils. This year my thoughtful daughter suggested a father-daughter bike trip on the trail from Frostburg to celebrate my birthday. It was a great idea. The trip was wonderful!

We drove to Frostburg on winding, hilly, rural roads through small West Virginia towns. The last seven miles on Interstate 68 approaching Frostburg were almost entirely uphill. Frostburg is a nice small town dating from the early 1800's with an undulating main street. It's also the home of Frostburg State University.

Our bike trip began on a cloudy cool morning. We stopped to take pictures of Frostburg's old rail station on our way to the trailhead.

Frostburg seemed to be the end of the rail line. There was a turntable just beyond the station for reversing the engines.

A twisty downhill road took us to the trailhead parking lot with its attractive shelter and informative signs.

I was thrilled to finally arrive here after years of wishing to return. Damp, chilly morning breezes made us glad we dressed properly for temperature in the low 60's.

The trail beckoned. We were soon on our way heading west toward the continental divide eight miles away.

Cool weather, the smell of fallen leaves, and trees on the verge of turning color made this autumnal equinox day feel very much like autumn. In a few miles we approached the Borden Tunnel, a relatively short tunnel only 0.18 miles long.

Our westward ride toward the continental divide was slightly uphill. Trail information claimed the maximum gradient is 1.75 percent. The gentle upgrade was definitely noticeable as we pedaled slowly along.

The next landmark was the Mason-Dixon line which forms the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania.

The sign pictured below explains the historical significance of the Mason-Dixon line, the "cultural dividing line between the North and the South".

Notice the brown and gold chain-like markings proceeding outward along the ground from the base of the marker above. These represent surveying chains used the mark out the border as explained in the following sign. (Click on the sign images to more easily read the text.)

We pedaled on and soon encountered enormous wind turbines. The Twin Ridges Wind Farm consists of 68 wind turbines generating as much as 139.4 megawatts of power. The next video fails to capture how big these giant structures are when viewed from the trail. They loom overhead like intimidating Martian tripod vehicles from the 2005 War of the Worlds movie.

A nice open view was available near the wind turbines.

Now we were about to enter the Big Savage Mountain Tunnel.

This impressive 0.625-mile long tunnel was completed in 1912. It's really fun to ride through. Thank goodness it's lit by overhead lamps. The exit looks a long way off!

Not far beyond the Big Savage Mountain Tunnel we arrived at our westward destination, the continental divide.

At this point we had traveled only about 8 miles from the Frostburg trailhead, but we pedaled very slowly and stopped many times along the way. The trail continues many miles further towards Pittsburgh. I knew from previous experience the next five miles beyond the westward tunnel exit shown below were not very interesting.

So we turned around and headed back out the east side of the tunnel toward Frostburg.

The return to Frostburg was now slightly downhill, and pedaling was noticeably easier. With fewer stops we were soon at the fossil hunting location I visited in 2013. Debris from the impressive layers shown in the next two pictures falls down near the side of the trail.

We explored one or two other possible locations nearby, but found the base of the layers shown above to be the best site for fossils. We spent more than an hour here searching through many fragments.

We found some nice fossils here. Some are pictured below. (Click on the images for larger, more detailed views.) This leaf was well centered on its flat stone.

The next picture shows some star-shaped leaves, probably aligned because they were part of a branch. Unfortunately, the rock is broken. The complete specimen would have been very nice indeed.

I'm definitely not an expert on the botany of extinct plants. The few books and websites I consulted to identify these fossils only confused me. I'm guessing these star-shaped leaves, called annularia, are the foliage of extinct medium-sized trees called calamites dating from 360 to 300 million years ago. We found lots of these annularia.

The annularia were often found together with other leaves.

In addition to elongated single leaves and star-shaped leaves, we also found smaller, more rounded leaves which might be from a "seed fern" called neuropteris.

We found two examples of what are apparently fossil fern seeds ("seed pods"?) called, trigonocarpus.

An online fossil image identified the next specimen, stretched horizontally on the rock, as a calamites "cone". I have no idea if this is correct.

We spent about 1.5 hours searching through rock fragments before deciding to stop. Fortunately, relatively cool temperature and cloud cover helped keep fossil hunting comfortable. We wouldn't have lasted long on the rock face in heat and full sunshine. We happily wrapped our fossils in newspaper and packed everything into a backpack. Then we cycled back to the Frostburg trailhead to eat some lunch and leave the heavy, treasure-filled backpack in the car.

We had only pedaled 16 miles at this point with many, many stops along the way, including the lengthy fossil hunting stop. Since it was still early afternoon, we decided to pedal eastward along the trail towards Cumberland, MD. By the time we had gone about 6 miles east it had become sunnier, hotter, and humid. The trail was soft and sandy in many places making pedaling harder. We started sweating in our cold weather clothes. It was time to turn around and return to the trailhead. So, after biking 28 total miles, we finished at the trailhead feeling hot, sweaty, and a bit tired.

The next day we drove back to Williamsburg through almost constant rain. In West Virginia we passed unaware through territory with good fossil hunting potential, but I didn't realize this until I consulted fossil guide books at home.  Maybe I'll get a chance to return some day. This was an absolutely wonderful trip, and I'm so very grateful to my daughter, Ellen, for suggesting it and accompanying me.