Broad Mountain (Lehigh Valley)

Broad Mountain[1]
USGS relief: The "Barrier Wall" of Broad Mountain (center Landform) and the Terrains it dominates west of the Lehigh Gorge and north of Tamaqua, Nesquehoning and Jim Thorpe, PA
Highest point
Peak	Broad Mountain, Carbon County[2]
Elevation	547.116 m (1,795.00 ft)GNIS
Prominence	540.1056 m (1,772.000 ft)1170284, Range,
Coordinates	40°54′34″N 75°48′24″W / 40.90944°N 75.80667°W / 40.90944; -75.80667Coordinates: 40°54′34″N 75°48′24″W / 40.90944°N 75.80667°W / 40.90944; -75.80667
Dimensions
Length	14–15.0 mi (22.5–24.1 km) east-west
Geography
Broad Mountain had a large importance in local Rail Transportation. The Nesquehoning Creek rises steeply along its southern face to traverse the mountain pass occupied by today's Hometown sitting in a saddle between it and Nesquehoning Ridge. Paralleling both to the south across Nesquehoning Creek, are Rt-54, and the RBMN railroad, successor to the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad and its lessee, the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Above the North-face, the stream valleys hosted the Beaver Meadows Railroad, later the oldest part of the fabled Lehigh Valley Railroad (Operated today by Norfolk Southern Railroad).
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
Borders on	Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians, Nesquehoning Creek and Upper Lehigh River at lower Lehigh Gorge
Geology
Orogeny	Appalachian Mountains
Age of rock	Silurian??
Type of rock	Tuscarora Formation?? and Shawangunk Formation; sedimentary

Broad Mountain or Broad Ridge in the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians in Carbon County and Schuylkill County in Eastern Pennsylvania is a steep-faced, anthracite-bearing barrier ridge just south of both Beaver Meadows and Weatherly, north of Nesquehoning and west and south of the Lehigh River basin west of the southwest border of the Poconos). The mountain ridge line is mostly flat and looks very similar to the man-made piles of culm in the region from the roads and towns looking up.

Geography[]

The long ridge has several peaks and the WSW peak in Schuylkill County is just 23 feet (7.0 m) short of the summit altitude of the Carbon County peak. The WSW section also continues an important watershed terrain separating the waters of the Schuylkill basin from those of the Lehigh River, which receives the majority of outflow. Broad Ridge and Nesquehoning Ridge are joined together at elevation at the location of Hometown, Pennsylvania through which an important railroad line and PA Route 54 climb from Nesquehoning, nestled into a notch around the ridge's southern face.

Oriented East-West and flanked in its south by Nesquehoning Creek, the ridgeline extends 14 miles (23 km)^[3] from the right bank of the Lehigh Gorge to the left bank of the Little Schuylkill River near the railroad junctions at Hometown and Delano.

Left side closeup of Broad Mountain, showing divide details between Schuylkill and Lehigh Valley basins. (Above map, without markup and annotations)

• In the upper right corner the roadway trace running diagonally from the right side of the map through Beaver Meadow and off the top is the wagon road predecessor of PA 93, the former toll road of the Lehigh & Susquehanna Turnpike taken over by the county in the last half of the nineteenth century.

See also[]

• Blue Mountain Geology
• Lausanne Landing
• Lehigh-Susquehanna Turnpike
• Penn Haven Junction

Footnotes[]

References[]

• USGS GNIS System, ID#1170284 - Broad Mountain, Pennsylvania