This morning Oreo was keeping an eye on things:

Our first stop today was Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site:

Oreo checked out the visitor center:

The site preserves a section of the Allegheny Portage railroad, a series of inclined planes used to pull barges floated to one side of the Allegheny Mountains up and over the mountains to the canal on the other side.

This model shows how the barges were divided into sections and loaded onto railcars:

For flat sections between the inclined planes, engines like this pulled the railcars:

We walked down to the railroad:

This building housed the steam engine used to pull the railcars up the inclined plane:

Looking down the hill:

The works in the building:

Initially hemp ropes were used, then replaced by steel cables, adapted from the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge:

These blocks were used to anchor the railroad ties:

Our next stop was Johnstown Flood National Memorial:

The site is located near the South Fork Dam, which failed on May 31st, 1889.  The raging waters flooded the town of Johnstown, 14 miles downstream, and killed over 2,200 people.  The visitor center’s main room recreates the wall of debris that pushed through the town:

Our overnight location is a dispersed camping location near Wharton Furnace, PA.  The gravel road leading to the site is so steep that we had to switch into 4WD-LOW to get here:

We unloaded the motorcycles:

M and I went for our first ride:

It’s pretty warm up here, even Oreo is suffering:

See the alternating yellow line on the trip map for today’s drive.