Maryland
#11 Backbone Mountain, elevation 3,360 ft.
Skulls and swag. Why I don’t live at the P.O.
Backbone has a spooky vibe, whether from the looming wind turbines, the hairpin turn in the summit road, or the surrounding clearcut.
Known as Hoye-Crest, after the founder of the local historical society, the summit is reached by a trail that was more ditch than path when I first visited. Finding the trailhead driving north, moreover, was daunting given the curvature of the road and the placement of the (very) small trail sign. Since then the caretakers of Backbone have done an admirable job upgrading the signage and improving the summit site, which is nicely appointed with a picnic table, a birdhouse, a modest cairn, and an official Highpointers Club mailbox, which contains the register and certificates. Everyone loves trail swag. The close proximity of clearcutting on the Maryland side of the border is less fortunate.
Anyone bothering to climb Backbone will no doubt seek out the other two nearby highpoints, a feat I've now done twice. I stayed once in Pennsylvania and the other time in Maryland at the Casselmann Inn, a former carriage house on the venerable National Turnpike.
Southbound highpointers now have the benefit of a road sign that says "Maryland High Point," which I saw on my second trip. I also came across the “No. 3” border marker: a stone obelisk on a bleak outcrop denoting the WV-MD border and resembling a nineteenth-century grave: more spooky mojo. The cairn was embellished with a plastic crab and a skull.
The nearby town of Silver Lake boasts what has been billed as the smallest church in the Lower 48. It isn’t, but the building is nonetheless very small and belongs to the genre known as “tiny churches.” Behind it sits an equally tiny but functioning post office that serves the residents of the town.
Southbound highpointers now have the benefit of a road sign that says "Maryland High Point," which I saw on my second trip. I also came across the “No. 3” border marker: a stone obelisk on a bleak outcrop denoting the WV-MD border and resembling a nineteenth-century grave: more spooky mojo. The cairn was embellished with a plastic crab and a skull.
Backbone Witch Project
My original video of Hoye-Crest was a labored experiment filled with distorted sound effects sampled from vintage Scooby Doo cartoons. Unfortunately, posting that on Youtube was not kosher, regardless of the distortion, so I had to revert to the breathier but legal version I have today. Apologies to Shaggy and Velma and the gang.