page_title: Wills Mountain
section_title: Maryland
hierarchical_section_title: Wills Mountain / Geography / Maryland
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Route 40 Alternate, the National Road, and historic Cumberland Road runs through the pass from and above Cumberland, Maryland, as did the historic Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's tracks to the Monongahela Valley in Pennsylvania passing through the Cumberland Narrows pass above Cumberland, Maryland. The Western Maryland Railroad also ran track through the gap. •&#160;The anticlinal structure of the Tuscarora Formation (sandstone layer at top and sides of the mountain) is apparent in this photo.
context_page_description: Wills Mountain is a quartzite-capped ridge in the Ridge and Valley physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania and Maryland, United States, extending from near Bedford, Pennsylvania, to near Cumberland, Maryland. It is the northernmost of several mountain ridges included within the Wills Mountain Anticline.
context_section_description: The Maryland part of Wills Mountain is located in Allegany County, where the mountain rises steeply from the Cumberland Narrows, a water gap west of Cumberland, half a mile (0.8 km) west of the mouth of Warrior Run. From there, the mountain extends northeasterly into Pennsylvania; the mountain's highest elevation in Maryland is 1,877 feet (572 m).
  Haystack Mountain is on the south side of the Narrows. Geologically, the two mountains are equivalent, both being central ridges of the Wills Mountain Anticline. The Cumberland Narrows was carved into these quartzite-capped mountain ridges by Wills Creek, a Potomac River tributary, over millions of years.
  The Cumberland Narrows serves as a western gateway from Cumberland to the Appalachian Plateau and the Ohio River Valley beyond. The Old National Road, now Alternate U.S. 40, passes through the Narrows, along with the former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's main line between Baltimore/Washington and Pittsburgh, now part of the CSX system, and a former line of the Western Maryland Railroad, now used by the steam- and diesel-powered excursion trains of the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad and the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail.
  A prominent rocky outcropping at the south end of Wills Mountain in the Cumberland Narrows is known as Lover's Leap.
caption: The Cumberland Narrows west of Cumberland, Maryland, the water gap along Wills Creek through which the National Road crosses between Haystack Mountain (left) and Wills Mountain (right). This easy passage through the rugged Wills Mountain Anticline is now used by the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad (left), Alternate U.S. 40 (center, left of the creek), and the CSX Railroad (right).
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