Rocks of Ages: North Branch, Potomac River

The North Branch of the Potomac River forms Maryland’s craggy border with West Virginia. Its trickling headwaters are in a remote place known as the Fairfax Stone. Several creeks feed the North Branch as it flows to its confluence with the South Branch and the main Potomac near Cumberland, Maryland. The North Branch was once so polluted that, by the 1980s, state officials declared it biologically dead. As I have reported in my Baltimore Sun columns, it has made an amazing comeback. Public access is limited, and that’s too bad. More Americans deserve to see this place, and that could be achieved by converting a dead railbed that runs for several miles along the river, in Allegany County, into a hike-bike trail. Allegany officials and citizens need to take a hard look at that possibility.

I’ve shared some photographs from float trips on the North Branch. Here are more, with a focus on some of the cliffs and rock faces that appear along the steep banks.